How I do Krishna Janmashtami Puja at Home

- By Anamika Mishra

Happy Janmashtami everyone! Janmashtami 2021 is on 30 august, i.e. today! I personally love Janmashtami because it’s our favourite Krishna’s birthday. I love to decorate our house-temple and set-up a jhanki (putting toys for krishna). In this post I am sharing how I do Krishna Janmashtami puja at home. If you are looking for a simple Janmashtami puja vidhi then this post will surely help you.

How I do Krishna Janmashtami Puja at Home

We start the day by cleaning our home-temple. This including washing all the idols and cleaning the temple corners. Our is a small wooden temple so it takes about an hour to do all this.

Once it is clean, we re-arrange the idols by putting Laddu Gopal (little krishna idol) sitting in his Jhula at the center of the temple. Obviously, it is his birthday after all.

After doing the regular daily puja, I start to decorate the temple in the afternoon or early evening (3pm – 6pm). I put up fairy lights, glitter threads, shiny balls and other decorative items in the temple.

Every year, Janmashtami puja/arti has a different muhurat. This year in 2021, the Nishita (midnight) puja muhurat for Janmashtami on August 30 is from 11:59 pm to 12:44 am (31 August).

There are 2 types of Puja to be done on Janmashtami. Those who perform the birth ceremony of Krishna, they fast all day and then perform the puja. The others just do arti during the muhurat of the puja. In my house, we only do puja and arti.

Krishna Janmashtami Puja at Home?

Preparation:

(what you need for Janmashtami puja)

fresh flowers
Insense sticks and diya
New clothes and ornaments for krishna
As krishna loves butter, prepare home-made butter (white butter) to offer him
Krishna loves milk as well, to prepare or bring Milk-based sweets
Fruits and sweets et al

Steps for Puja:

Make Krishna do holy bath with ganga-jal
Make him wear new clothes and ornaments
Decorate his jhula and the temple with fresh flowers (this is apart from the overall decoration done previously)
Light the lamp and offer incense to the little Kanha
Apply chandan kumkum tika
Offer fresh flowers
Offer butter and sweets
For bhoga, offer sweets and fruits as well
Ring bells while making little Kanha swing on his jhula; every family member should do this
Chant Krishna Shloka followed by Krishna Bhajans
Do aarti (camphor/kapoor) to conclude the puja white chanting the mantras/shlokas
Distribute prasaad
Sit there for sometime and meditate or tell your wishes to Kanha