Shree Krishna Janmashtami

Shree Krishna Janmashtami, written in Nepali as श्रीकृष्ण जन्माष्टमी, marks the birth of Lord Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu and one of the most loved figures in the Hindu world. It falls on the eighth day of the dark fortnight of Bhadra, and it is a public holiday in Nepal.

What makes this festival different from almost every other one in the calendar is the hour. Krishna was born at midnight, inside a prison cell in Mathura, during a storm, to parents who had already lost six children to a king determined to kill him. So Janmashtami is not celebrated at dawn or at dusk. Devotees fast through the whole day, stay awake through the night, and the celebration erupts at exactly twelve o'clock, when the temple bells go, the conch shells sound, and the newborn Krishna is placed in his cradle. In Nepal, that night has its own name: Moharatri.

In Nepal, the centre of the festival is the Krishna Mandir at Patan Durbar Square, a 17th-century temple carved entirely from stone, with twenty-one pinnacles and the Mahabharata and Ramayana cut into its beams. On Janmashtami, the queue to enter it stretches across Mangalbazar and holds through the night. This page covers the exact date and why it moves, the full birth story, who Krishna was, the fasting and midnight rituals, the Krishna Mandir, how the Terai celebrates differently, and everything else the day carries.

Quick Facts

Krishna Janmashtami in Nepali date 2083?

Krishna Janmashtami falls on Bhadra Krishna Ashtami, the eighth day of the waning fortnight in the month of Bhadra. In 2026, which is 2083 in the Bikram Sambat calendar, it falls on Friday, 4 September 2026, which is Bhadra 19, 2083 BS.

Four of the next five years are split years, meaning the Ashtami tithi and the Rohini nakshatra do not line up neatly and the two traditions land on consecutive days. The table above gives the later of the two dates in those years, which is the Vaishnava reckoning. That is the one Nepal followed in 2082 BS, the most recent split year, when the earlier date was 15 August, and the country observed 16 August. The section below explains why this happens.

Why the date moves so much

Look at the table. In 2082 BS, Janmashtami was on 16 August. In 2083 BS, it is on 4 September. That is a gap of nineteen days, and it moves the festival out of Shrawan and into Bhadra in the Nepali calendar.

The reason is that Janmashtami follows a tithi, a lunar day, while the Bikram Sambat calendar is solar with fixed month lengths. A lunar date cannot sit still on a solar calendar. On top of that, the Hindu calendar inserts an extra lunar month called adhik maas roughly every three years to stop the lunar and solar years drifting apart, and in a year with an extra month the entire festival season slides back by about three weeks. That is what happened in 2083, which is why Janai Purnima, Gai Jatra, Janmashtami and Teej all arrive noticeably late this year.

Why Janmashtami sometimes has two dates

Some years you will see Janmashtami listed on two consecutive days, and the reason is a genuine difference in how traditions calculate it, not an error.

The Smarta tradition follows the udaya tithi, meaning the day on which the Ashtami tithi is running at sunrise.

The Vaishnava tradition gives weight to the combination of Ashtami tithi with the Rohini nakshatra, the star under which Krishna is said to have been born, and never observes Janmashtami on Saptami.

When the Ashtami tithi and Rohini nakshatra do not overlap neatly, the two traditions land one day apart. Since Krishna's birth is placed at midnight rather than at sunrise, the question of which calendar day owns that midnight is a real one. In Nepal, the government holiday follows the date set by the official panchanga, so for practical purposes, use the date on the Nepali calendar.

Why Midnight? The Meaning of Nishith Kaal and Moharatri

Almost every other Hindu festival is timed to sunrise, a full moon, or a specific muhurta during the day. Janmashtami is timed to the middle of the night, and that is because the story says so.

Krishna was born in the dead of night in a locked prison. The scriptures place the birth in Nishith Kaal, the deep midnight period, and that is when the puja is performed, when the fast is broken, and when the birth is announced in temples. Everything before it, the fasting and the singing and the waiting exists to build toward that single moment.

In Nepal the night carries a specific name: Moharatri (मोहरात्रि). Devotees keep jagaram, staying awake right through it, filling the hours with bhajan and kirtan until the clock reaches twelve.

There is a meaning read into the timing as well. Krishna is understood to have been born at the darkest hour, in a prison, under a tyrant, in a storm, which is exactly the point. The tradition holds that divine help arrives not when things are comfortable but when they are at their worst.

The Birth Story of Krishna

This is the story the whole festival is built on, and it is worth telling in full.

The prophecy

In the city of Mathura, a princess named Devaki was married to a nobleman called Vasudeva. Devaki's brother, Kansa, was the king, a cruel and paranoid ruler who had seized the throne from his own father.

On the wedding day, as Kansa himself drove the newlyweds' chariot through the city, a voice sounded from the sky. It told him that the eighth child born to Devaki would be the one to kill him.

Kansa drew his sword to kill his sister on the spot. Vasudeva stopped him with a bargain: spare her, and every child she bears will be handed to you. Kansa agreed, and then went further. He imprisoned them both.

Six children

One by one, Devaki gave birth in that cell, and one by one Kansa killed the children. Six times. The seventh pregnancy, according to the tradition, was transferred to another womb, to Rohini, another wife of Vasudeva living in Gokul, and that child was born as Balarama, Krishna's elder brother. Kansa believed the seventh pregnancy had simply ended.

Then came the eighth.

The night of the birth

Krishna was born at midnight, in the prison, in the middle of a storm. And then, the story says, the impossible happened. The chains fell from Vasudeva's wrists. The cell doors swung open. Every guard in the prison dropped into a deep sleep. Nobody woke.

Vasudeva lifted the newborn into a basket, carried him out through the open doors, and walked into the storm toward the Yamuna River. The river was in full flood. As he stepped in, the water is said to have parted or fallen back to let him cross, and the great serpent Shesha spread his hoods above the child to keep the rain off.

On the far bank lay Gokul, where his friend Nanda and Nanda's wife Yashoda had just had a baby daughter. Vasudeva laid Krishna beside Yashoda, took the infant girl, and carried her back across the river to the prison cell. The doors closed. The chains locked. The guards woke.

Kansa's failure

When Kansa came for the eighth child, he found a baby girl. He seized her anyway, and as he did, she slipped from his hands, rose into the air, and revealed herself as a goddess, telling him that the one who would kill him was already born and already beyond his reach.

Krishna grew up in Gokul and later Vrindavan as a cowherd's son, and Kansa spent years sending demons and assassins to find and kill him. Every one of them failed. In the end, Krishna returned to Mathura and killed Kansa, and freed Devaki and Vasudeva from the cell they had been in since their wedding day.

The core of the story is preserved in the Bhagavata Purana, and it is recited and enacted in temples across Nepal every Janmashtami night.

Who Was Krishna?

Krishna is the eighth avatar of Vishnu, and he is unlike any other figure in the tradition, because he is loved in so many different ways at once. He is a mischievous child, a flute-playing lover, a loyal friend, a shrewd statesman, and the speaker of the most important philosophical text in Hinduism.

The childhood leelas

The stories of Krishna's childhood, called leelas, are the ones every Nepali child knows.

Makhan chor, the butter thief. Little Krishna could not be kept away from the butter and curd the gopis stored in hanging pots. He raided them constantly, with his friends standing on each other's shoulders to reach. Caught with butter around his mouth, he would deny everything. The tradition reads the story as more than a joke: what he steals is the heart of anyone who loves him honestly.

Putana. Kansa sent a demoness disguised as a nursemaid to poison the infant. He drank, and she died.

Kaliya daman. A poisonous serpent called Kaliya had settled in a bend of the Yamuna and turned the water black, killing anything that drank from it. Krishna jumped in, and after a long struggle rose to dance on the serpent's many hoods until Kaliya submitted and left the river. The water ran clean again.

Lifting Govardhan. When Krishna persuaded the village to stop the annual offering to Indra and honour the Govardhan hill and their own cattle instead, the offended Indra sent a punishing storm. Krishna lifted the entire hill on the little finger of one hand and held it over the village like an umbrella for seven days and nights until the rain stopped.

Raas leela. The moonlit circle dance with the gopis of Vrindavan, and above all with Radha, whose love for Krishna is treated in the tradition not as romance but as the highest form of devotion, the soul's longing for the divine.

The adult Krishna

Krishna leaves Vrindavan, kills Kansa, and becomes a king at Dwarka. In the Mahabharata, he is the pivot on which the whole epic turns: cousin, adviser, diplomat, and strategist to the Pandavas. He refuses to fight in the war himself and instead serves as Arjuna's charioteer, which is precisely the position from which he delivers the Gita.

The Bhagavad Gita

On the battlefield of Kurukshetra, with the two armies drawn up, Arjuna looks across at his own relatives, teachers, and friends on the other side, and puts down his bow. He would rather die than kill them.

What follows is the Bhagavad Gita, roughly seven hundred verses across eighteen chapters, set inside the Mahabharata. Krishna's answer covers duty, action, the nature of the self, devotion, and the paths to liberation. Its most quoted teaching is on action without attachment: do the work that is yours to do, and do not make your peace of mind depend on the results.

Reciting the Gita, or hearing it explained, is one of the standard observances of Janmashtami night in Nepal.

The many names of Krishna

Each name carries a different part of him. Govinda and Gopal, the protector of cows. Madhav and Keshav, ancient names of the divine. Shyam and Kanha, the dark one, the beloved boy. Murali Manohar, the one who enchants with the flute. Damodar, the one tied at the waist, from the story of Yashoda binding him to a mortar. Giridhari, the lifter of the hill. Nandalal, the son of Nanda. Vasudev, the son of Vasudeva. Jagannath, lord of the world.

Krishna Mandir, Patan: Nepal's Centre of Janmashtami

If Janmashtami has one address in Nepal, it is the Krishna Mandir at Patan Durbar Square in Lalitpur, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The dream that built it

The temple was commissioned by King Siddhi Narsingh Malla. The story told in Patan is that the king dreamed of Krishna and Radha standing together in front of his palace, and ordered a temple built on the exact spot where he had seen them. Construction is said to have taken about six and a half years, and the temple was completed in 1637.

A temple made of stone

Nepali temple architecture is overwhelmingly brick and timber, with tiered pagoda roofs. The Krishna Mandir is neither. It is built entirely of finely cut stone, in the North Indian shikhara style, which makes it genuinely rare in the Kathmandu Valley and one of the most distinctive buildings in the country.

It carries twenty-one gajur, the pinnacles or spires that crown a temple, which is why it is often simply called the twenty one spire temple.

Three floors, three deities

The temple rises in three storeys, and each is dedicated to a different deity. The first is Krishna, the second Shiva, and the third Lokeshwor, the Buddhist form of Avalokiteshvara. That one building holds a Vaishnava, a Shaiva and a Buddhist shrine stacked on top of each other is a very Kathmandu Valley thing to do, and it says a great deal about how the traditions live together here.

The main shrine holds Krishna with Rukmini and Satyabhama.

The epics carved into the beams

The detail that makes visitors stop is the carving. Running along the beams of the lower storey are scenes from the Mahabharata, and along the storey above them, scenes from the Ramayana, cut into the stone in long narrative friezes with captions in Newari script beneath them.

It is, in effect, an illustrated edition of two epics, carved in stone, readable by anyone who could read Newari, standing in a public square. In a period when manuscripts were handwritten and scarce, this was the epic made available to an entire city for free.

Earthquake and restoration

The Krishna Mandir was badly damaged in the April 2015 earthquake, along with much of Patan Durbar Square. Restoration was completed by 2018, and the temple reopened to devotees.

Janmashtami at the Krishna Mandir

On Janmashtami, the temple at Mangalbazar becomes the busiest religious site in the country. A large mela fills the square. Devotees queue in lines that wind right across Patan Durbar Square, many of them fasting, many of them staying all night. Bhajan and kirtan run continuously, the temple is decorated and lit, and the crowd holds until the midnight moment when Krishna's birth is announced.

Where Else Janmashtami Is Celebrated in Nepal

ISKCON Radha Govinda Temple, Budhanilkantha. At the foot of Shivapuri hill in Kathmandu, the ISKCON temple runs one of the largest and most organised Janmashtami programmes in the country, with continuous kirtan, abhishek, discourses and prasad distribution, and very large crowds through the night.

Krishna temples across the Kathmandu Valley. Smaller Krishna temples throughout Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur hold their own night programmes, and neighbourhood temples are often the more manageable option for families with children.

The Terai and Madhesh. The Terai celebrates Janmashtami on a large scale, with temple programmes, jhanki, tableaux depicting scenes from Krishna's life, elaborate Raas Leela dance dramas, and Dahi Handi competitions where teams build human pyramids to reach and break a curd-filled pot hung high above the street. Dahi Handi is much more a Terai and Indian tradition than a hill or valley one.

Homes. Many families set up a small Krishna shrine at home, decorate a cradle, bathe the idol, and hold their own midnight aarti without going to a temple at all.

Fifteen days later comes Radha Janmotsav, the birthday of Radha, observed on the eighth day of the following bright fortnight. Many devotees who keep Janmashtami also mark it, and in Nepal's calendar it appears alongside Gorakhkali Puja and Durwashtami.

How Janmashtami Is Observed: The Vrata and the Midnight Puja

The fast (vrata). Devotees, both women and men, fast through the whole day. The strictness varies. Some take only water. Some take fruit, milk, and non-grain food. Some observe a complete fast without water. The fast is not broken at sunset like most Hindu fasts. It is held until midnight, after the birth ceremony.

Staying awake (jagaram). The night is spent awake, which is the practice that gives Moharatri its character. Families and temple congregations pass the hours with singing rather than sitting in silence.

Bhajan and kirtan. Devotional singing runs from evening until midnight and often well past it. In temples, this is continuous and collective.

Scripture. Recitation of the Bhagavad Gita, and readings or discourses from the Bhagavata Purana, especially the chapters covering Krishna's birth and childhood.

The midnight ceremony. At twelve, the birth is announced. The idol of the infant Krishna is bathed, often with panchamrit, the five-part mixture of milk, curd, ghee, honey, and sugar, dressed in new clothes, decorated with ornaments and a peacock feather, and placed in a decorated cradle which devotees rock. Conch shells are blown, bells are rung, and aarti is performed.

Prasad. The fast is broken with prasad after the puja. Offerings typically include panchamrit, butter and mishri, curd, sweets, fruit and kheer, all of them chosen for their connection to Krishna's own tastes.

Decoration. Temples and homes are decorated with flowers, lights and rangoli. In many households, a trail of small footprints is drawn from the doorway to the shrine, marking the infant Krishna walking into the house.

Janmashtami Wishes and Messages

• श्रीकृष्ण जन्माष्टमीको हार्दिक शुभकामना
• जय श्रीकृष्ण, जन्माष्टमीको उपलक्ष्यमा सुख, शान्ति र समृद्धिको कामना
• बाँसुरीको धुनले तपाईंको जीवन भरियोस्, जन्माष्टमीको शुभकामना
• मोहरात्रिको पावन अवसरमा श्रीकृष्ण जन्माष्टमीको शुभकामना
• Happy Krishna Janmashtami. May the flute player bring light to the darkest hour.
• On this Janmashtami, may you act well and worry less, as the Gita teaches.
• जय श्रीकृष्ण, हरे कृष्ण हरे कृष्ण, कृष्ण कृष्ण हरे हरे

Janmashtami greetings, temple programme notices and school posters can be made quickly with the Digital Patro post maker, which has Nepali festival templates.

Interesting Facts About Krishna Janmashtami

It is one of the very few Hindu festivals whose main ritual happens at midnight rather than at dawn or dusk.

• In Nepal, the night of Janmashtami has its own name, Moharatri.
• Krishna was born in a prison cell, which makes the location of the birth unusual among major divine births.
• The Krishna Mandir in Patan is built entirely of stone in a country where temples are almost always brick and wood.
• That temple has twenty-one pinnacles and three storeys dedicated to Krishna, Shiva and Lokeshwor, mixing Vaishnava, Shaiva and Buddhist worship in one building.
• The Mahabharata and Ramayana are carved along its beams with captions in Newari script, effectively a public illustrated edition of both epics.
• Krishna Mandir was badly damaged in the 2015 earthquake and restored by 2018.
• The Bhagavad Gita is spoken by Krishna in his role as a charioteer, not as a king or a god on a throne.
• Some years, Janmashtami is observed on two consecutive days because the Smarta and Vaishnava traditions calculate the date differently.
• Dahi Handi, the human pyramid contest, is mainly a Terai and Indian tradition rather than a hill or Kathmandu Valley one.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Krishna Janmashtami?

→ Krishna Janmashtami is the festival celebrating the birth of Lord Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu. It falls on the eighth day of the waning fortnight of Bhadra and is a public holiday in Nepal. Devotees fast through the day, stay awake through the night, and celebrate the birth at midnight with puja, bhajan, and the rocking of Krishna's cradle. It is also called Krishnashtami, Gokulashtami, and Krishna Jayanti.

When is Krishna Janmashtami in 2083 BS?

→ It falls on Friday, 4 September 2026, which is Bhadra 19, 2083 BS. It is a gazetted public holiday in Nepal, so government offices, banks, and schools are closed.

Why does the date of Janmashtami change every year?

→ Janmashtami is fixed to a tithi, a lunar day, while the Bikram Sambat calendar is solar. The two do not line up, so the festival moves each year. The gap can be large: in 2082 BS it fell on 16 August, and in 2083 BS it falls on 4 September, because 2083 has an extra lunar month called adhik maas, which pushes the whole festival season later.

Why is Janmashtami sometimes celebrated on two different days?

→ Because the Smarta and Vaishnava traditions calculate the date differently. Smarta practice follows the udaya tithi, the day on which Ashtami is running at sunrise. Vaishnava practice gives weight to the combination of Ashtami tithi with the Rohini nakshatra and never observes Janmashtami on Saptami. When those do not coincide, the two land a day apart. In Nepal, follow the date on the official Nepali calendar, which is what the government holiday uses.

Why is Krishna Janmashtami celebrated at midnight?

→ Because Krishna is said to have been born at midnight, in a prison cell in Mathura, during a storm. The scriptures place the birth in Nishith Kaal, the deep midnight period, so the puja, the announcement of the birth, and the breaking of the fast all happen then rather than during the day. In Nepal, the night itself is called Moharatri, and devotees keep jagaram, staying awake right through it.

What is Moharatri?

→ Moharatri is the Nepali name for the night of Krishna Janmashtami, the night devotees stay awake waiting for the midnight birth. The hours are filled with bhajan, kirtan, and scripture recitation until the moment of the birth ceremony at midnight.

What is the story of Krishna's birth?

→ A prophecy told King Kansa of Mathura that the eighth child of his sister Devaki would kill him. He imprisoned Devaki and her husband Vasudeva and killed their first six children. The seventh, Balarama, was transferred to another womb. When Krishna was born at midnight, the chains fell away, the doors opened, and the guards fell asleep. Vasudeva carried the baby across the flooded Yamuna to Gokul, exchanged him for the newborn daughter of Yashoda and Nanda, and returned. Krishna grew up safely in Gokul and eventually returned to kill Kansa.

Who were Krishna's parents?

→ His birth parents were Devaki and Vasudeva of Mathura. He was raised by Yashoda and Nanda in Gokul after Vasudeva carried him across the Yamuna on the night of his birth to save him from Kansa. His elder brother Balarama was born to Rohini, another wife of Vasudeva.

How do people fast on Janmashtami?

→ The fast runs through the whole day and is broken only after the midnight puja, unlike most Hindu fasts which end at sunset. The strictness varies by person and family. Some take only water, some take fruit, milk, and non-grain foods, and some keep a complete fast without water. After the birth ceremony, the fast is broken with prasad, typically panchamrit, butter and mishri, curd, fruit, sweets, and kheer.

How is Krishna Janmashtami celebrated in Nepal?

→ Devotees fast, visit Krishna temples, and stay awake through the night singing bhajan and kirtan and reciting the Bhagavad Gita. At midnight, the infant Krishna is bathed, usually with panchamrit, dressed, decorated with a peacock feather, and placed in a cradle that devotees rock, accompanied by conch shells, bells, and aarti. The largest gathering is at the Krishna Mandir in Patan Durbar Square, where a mela fills the square, and the queue runs all night.

Which is the most important Krishna temple in Nepal?

→ The Krishna Mandir at Patan Durbar Square in Lalitpur. It is a 17th-century stone temple in the shikhara style with twenty-one pinnacles, built by King Siddhi Narsingh Malla and completed in 1637, and it sits within a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On Janmashtami, it draws the largest crowds in the country. The ISKCON Radha Govinda Temple at Budhanilkantha also holds one of the biggest programmes.

What is special about the Krishna Mandir in Patan?

→ It is built entirely of carved stone in a country where temples are almost always brick and timber, and it carries twenty-one gajur or pinnacles. It rises in three storeys dedicated to Krishna, Shiva and Lokeshwor, combining Vaishnava, Shaiva and Buddhist worship in one building. Its beams carry long narrative friezes of the Mahabharata and Ramayana with captions in Newari script. It was badly damaged in the 2015 earthquake and restored by 2018.

Is Krishna Janmashtami a public holiday in Nepal?

→ Yes. Krishna Janmashtami is a gazetted public holiday listed in the Government of Nepal's official holiday schedule, so government offices, banks, and schools close. This is different from Gai Jatra, which is only a local holiday in the Kathmandu Valley.

What is the connection between Janmashtami and the Bhagavad Gita?

→ The Bhagavad Gita is spoken by Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, where he is serving as Arjuna's charioteer. When Arjuna refuses to fight against his own relatives and teachers, Krishna's reply becomes roughly seven hundred verses across eighteen chapters, covering duty, action, the self, and devotion. Reciting or hearing the Gita is one of the standard observances of Janmashtami night.

What is Dahi Handi and is it celebrated in Nepal?

→ Dahi Handi is a contest in which a pot filled with curd is hung high above the street, and teams build human pyramids to reach and break it, recalling Krishna's childhood butter stealing. In Nepal, it is celebrated mainly in the Terai and Madhesh, and it is much less common in the hills and the Kathmandu Valley, where the day is centred on temple visits, fasting and the midnight puja.

What are Krishna's other names?

→ Krishna is known by many names, each carrying a different aspect: Govinda and Gopal as protector of cows, Madhav and Keshav as ancient names of the divine, Shyam and Kanha as the dark one and the beloved boy, Murali Manohar as the enchanter with the flute, Damodar from the story of being tied at the waist, Giridhari as the lifter of the Govardhan hill, and Nandalal as the son of Nanda.