Hare Krishna Temple Perth WA ISKCON Puja will be Celebrated on Saturday 9th Novemver 2002
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GOVARDHANA PUJA is the celebration of Krishna's pastime of lifting Govardhana Hill. As Srila Prabhupada relates in the Krishna book (chapters 24 and 25), Krishna dissuaded his father, Nanda Maharaja, from performing ritualistic sacrifice to the demigod Indra, and encouraged the residents of Vrindavan to worship Him in the form of Govardhana Hill.

At the end of the Dvapara-yuga (about 5000 years ago), all the cowherd men of Vrindavan had arranged to worship King Indra, the king of the demigods and superintending deity of rain. Because Vrindavan is a village of vaishyas (farmers and dairymen), and especially dependent on the rain to grow crops and feed the cows, the cowherd men felt obliged to offer Lord Indra some worship in order to ensure regular supply of rain.

However, by logical arguments, Krishna persuaded His Farther, Nanda Maharaja, to abandon the worship of Lord Indra and to use the preparations he had already made to worship the cows, the brahmanas (priests) and Govardhana Hill. Krishna gave specific instructions on how the worship should be performed. He instructed His father to prepare very nice food stuffs of all descriptions from the grains and ghee collected for Lord Indra's yajna, such as rice, dahl, halavah, pakoras, puris and all kinds of milk preparations such as sweet rice, sweetballs, sandesh, rasagulla and ladhu. Krishna ordered that this feast be offered to Govardhana Hill with Vedic mantras chanted by qualified brahmanas. He instructed that the cows should be decorated nicely and fed to their full satisfaction. Then keeping the cows before them, the inhabitants of Vrndavan were to circumambulate Govardhana Hill.

When all these activities had been carefully performed, Krishna expanded Himself into a gigantic, transcendental form and declared to the inhabitants of Vrindavan that He was Himself Govardhana Hill, and accepted all the offerings made during the ceremony.

Being puffed up by his position as King of the Demigods, Lord Indra took great offence at his sacrifice being cancelled, and attempted to chastise Krishna and the inhabitants of Vrindavan by calling the samvartaka clouds (used to inundate the world at the end of each cycle of yugas) and instructing them to totally destroy the residents, the cows and the village of Vrindavan. Despite the incredible cyclone unleashed by Indra, Lord Krishna offered protection to the cowherd men and women by lifting Govardhana Hill so they could shelter underneath from Indra's wrath Krishna exhibited His supreme mystic power by holding the mountain aloft for seven days with the little finger of his left hand.

Upon seeing this, Lord Indra immediately realized his mistake in thinking Krishna to be an ordinary cowherd boy. Being suitably humbled by Krishna's exhibition of supreme mystic power, Lord Indra at once bowed down before Lord Krishna and offered prayers to Him.

Devotees celebrate this remarkable pastime by observing the festival called Govardhana Puja and Go Puja. For Govardhana Puja, a replica of Govardhana Hill is made from prasadam, and a murti of Krishna is placed on top. The devotees then circumambulate this hill while chanting ecstatic kirtan. Afterwards, the prasadam is distributed freely. This is a very exciting and meaningful festival, and is always enjoyed by those who participate. Also it is said that those who celebrate the Govardhana Puja festival need never fear death by snakebite!