JANMASHTAMI

Millions of Hindus around the world will today (20th August 2003) celebrate Janmashtami. This festival marks the birth of Lord Krishna, who appeared in Mathura, India, about 5000 years ago. Many devotees fast up until midnight, when there is a beautiful arati ceremony followed by a special feast. In homes, people often place a small Deity of baby Krishna in a cradle and rock Him gently. But for the most devotees the main event of the day is to take darshan of Lord Krishna in the temple.

Bhaktivedanta Manor in Watford, UK will stage the largest Hindu festival in the world outside of India on Sunday 24th August 2003. Their celebrations each year receive about 50,000 pilgrims over a period of 2 days.

The Deities and the altar in the temple room are decorated; bhajans, devotional songs to Lord Krishna, are played throughout the day and the fantastic displays of Lord Krishna's spiritual abode and miraculous birth in this world line the queuing system into the temple room. Along the way, pilgrims may rock baby Krishna on His cradle and learn about the Lord's pastimes and see depictions of various demigods.

Many of Bhaktivedanta Manor's 70 acres are used effectively during the festival as a giant car park. All of the car-parking attendants, like everyone else in the festival, are volunteers, and countless hours of hard work go into organising the event. Once out of the open fields, the pilgrims walk underneath a large Vedic archway, through the reception tent and into the festival fields.

In the fields there is the main gigantic marquee, which houses the main stage. The stage show includes music, dance, excellent dramas, sometimes film displays and VIP talks. There is a prasad tent, which in two days serves tens of thousands of plates of hot free meals. (Only the most committed fast all day!) The kitchens are frantically busy.

There is a multi-media Bhagavad-Gita tent, which uses live drama, slides and sound recordings to summarise the teachings of the great work in a short time. Afterwards, pilgrims receive the opportunity to purchase a copy of the Gita.

The youth group, the Pandava Senas, have a tent too. Outside the tent they have a small stage of their own, and working with the national festival crew, put on various performances. Inside the tent, there is usually a large variety of Krishna conscious films shown: about science, archaeology, religion and the pit-falls of modern materialistic culture.

Also on-site is a wonderful bazaar, information tents, music tents, a bakery tent, and pizza and chips stalls. All in all, especially when the weather stays clement, for many Janmashtami time is the highlight of the year at Bhaktivedanta Manor.