How We Celebrate Sri Krishna Jeyanthi At Our Home

How We Celebrate Sri Krishna Jeyanthi At Our Home

 

India is famous for its cultural and traditional richness of festivals and celebrations. We, our family love the second half of every year since those six months are full of many festivals. I personally love to celebrate many festivals like Maha Shiva Rathri, Krishna Jeyanthi, Vinayagar Chaturthi because of their vibrant, colorful, foodie and cultural way of celebrations rather than their religions importance.

Festivals really help us to inculcate friendship, cultural importance and moral values in the young minds of our children. Recently we celebrated Sri Krishna Jeyanthi at our home. So I thought of sharing the pooja and celebrations of Sri Krishna Jeyanthi with you to throw some light on our Indian tradition and culture.

 

What Is Sri Krishna Jeyanthi?

Krishna Janmashtami or Janmashtami or Sri Krishna Jeyanthi is an annual Hindu festival that celebrates the birth of Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu.

 

When Is Sri Krishna Jeyanthi Celebrated?

It is celebrated on the eighth day (Ashtami) of the Krishna Paksha (dark fortnight) during August or September.  

 

 What Are The Other Names For Sri Krishna Jeyanthi?

  • Krishna Astami
  • Janmashtami
  • Gokulasthami
  • Sree Jayanti

 

How We Celebrate Sri Krishna Jeyanthi At Our Home?

We invite our friends and relatives for the pooja and festival. Sri Krishna Jeyanthi is a fun filled celebration particularly for kids. So we invite all nearby kids for the festival. Also, we involve our son to be a part of the celebrations by making decorations and arrangements at our home.

 

Beautiful Krishna Sticker
Beautiful Krishna Sticker At Our Drawing Hall

 

We welcome our guests with colorful Kolam or Rangoli. Also we draw small footprints of rice flour from the entrance of our house to our pooja room. This is for welcoming Sri Krishna to our house. Making the footprints using rice flour is for small creatures like ant and insects to eat. We just care more for all living creatures.

 

Kolam or Rangoli
Kolam or Rangoli

 

Krishna's Footprints
Krishna’s Footprints

 

All the idols and photos of gods and goddesses at our pooja room are decorated with flowers, garlands and jewels. And Sri Krishna statue or photo is specially decorated. We offer Sweet Aval or Poha, Seedai, Murrukku, Butter, Butter Milk, Jhangiri, Pal Kova, Betal Leaves, Coconut and Fruits as prasad. Mostly the snacks will be prepared at home with extra flavor of yummy ghee. Krishna is a big lover of butter and ghee. So we believe that he will bless us with all abundance by tasting his favorite snacks.

 

Decorations At Our Pooja Room
Decorations At Our Pooja Room

 

Krishna songs and slogams will be played. The house will be filled with aroma of splendid incense sticks. It adds a divine effect to the celebrations. All family members will assemble and the eldest of the family will do the pooja. And the pooja starts with Aarthi, Songs and ends with yummy snacks.

 

Sri Krishna Jeyanthi - Offerings To Lord Sri Krishna - Raising World Children
Offerings To Lord Sri Krishna

Children will be dressed as Krishna and Radha. The elders will tell the stories of Sri Krishna. They enjoy by singing songs, playing instruments, dancing, reciting mantras, drawing, coloring and playing dramas. We, ladies, myself, my amma and my mother in law will recite Krishna Astakam and sing Sri Krishna Songs.

Also we visit to nearby Krishna Temples. Anna Thanam or Donation of Food will be offered at most of the temples on this auspicious day. We would usually donate some money and rice for this ceremony. Thus festivals will bring us closer, kinder and happier by all means. Also festivals are an easy way to teach spirituality to our kids.

What Mantra To be Chanted On Sri Krishna Jeyanthi?

 

We will chant Krishna Maha Mantra. This mantra can be chanted by anyone irrespective of religion, faith, gender and nation.

Krishna Maha Mantra
Image Credit: Pinterest

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

Krishna means “the all-attractive one,” and Rama means “the reservoir of pleasure.” Hare invokes His presence in our lives. This Maha (great) Mantra – chanting of His holy names brings innate satisfaction and the highest pleasure to all of us.

Info Source: ISKON, Delhi.

What Is The Significance Of Krishna Maha Mantra?

The sound and vibrations of this maha mantra will bring peace, happiness, cleanse the mind and soul, suppress our sorrows and anxieties.

Do you celebrate any festivals? What are the fun and joy about your festivals? How do you involve your kids on the celebrations? Please share with us …… And stay tuned for our Vinayagar Chaturthi celebrations .

How To celebrate Krishna Jayanti - Raising World children | Krishna Jayanthi | Celebration | Indian Festivals

 

 Vasantha Vivek Raising World ChildrenVasantha Vivek loves to call herself as a happy woman, daughter, sister, wife, mother, teacher, friend, mentor, seeker, lover. She’s from Kovilpatti, a small town of Southern Tamilnadu of India. She was a teacher by profession. She worked as a professor at an Engineering College for nearly 15 years. She has learned a lot as a teacher. She hopes that she had inspired some hearts during that period. Teaching is her passion Reading is her love. Cooking is her heart. She enjoys reading and writing very much. You can find her @mysweetnothings on Facebook and Twitter.
Cultural Storytelling - Its Importance and Impact On Our Kids

Cultural Storytelling – Its Importance and Impact On Our Kids

As we discussed in our previous article 7 Storytelling Hacks – Introducing Kids To Cultural Stories, Indian culture is rich with stories sharing life lessons, morals, traditions and values. Story telling is really an art and a story teller is an artist.

When I was teaching as a professor, I would introduce a new book to my students during my lecture. This will make them curious in reading the book. I would list the name of the book, author, publisher and cost of the book. Mostly I would list only those books I have read. Most of my students really appreciated this.

Still my students thank me for teaching them the toughest subjects like Data Structures, Programming and Operating System in an easier way. This was made possible only by experimenting various pedagogic tools. Among all,  story telling, puzzles, and role play are my favorites.

[bctt tweet=”Story telling is really an art and a story teller is an artist” username=”contactrwc”]

We are dedicate an hour in a week as Reading Hour in our family during Sundays. We three will engage ourselves in reading for that one hour. It’s a family bonding hour and relaxation hour too. And we have a policy of gifting friends and kids with interesting books only.

We are die hard fans of books and stationary items. And we are collecting books for setting up own library in our house. We are proud to share that we have collected nearly 300 books so far. My son is having his own collection of nearly 150 books.

Though Indian culture is rich with stories, story telling is found to be lacking in this modern era. The reasons for this are wide spread. With my personal experience as a mother and as a professor in an engineering college, here i have listed some important reasons for the lack of story telling.

Reasons for Lack of Story Telling

Raising World Children Cultural Stories

Teachers and parents are not able to tell stories in this modern world due to some difficulties as:

  • Limited time to complete the syllabus: In schools and colleges, they have only limited time to complete the prescribed portions. Hence they could not experiment with many pedagogic tools like story telling, role play and all.
  • High stress in working environment: Parents are facing work pressure and high stress beyond their limits. They are being driven by annual targets, performance hikes, societal pressure, and work challenges. So they love to relax in front of TV when they are back home.
  • Lack of time: Moreover, parents also not finding time to read stories and other topics. They have to manage the physical, financial, emotional and critical needs of their family. All these demands time for its execution.
  • Less priority: Parents are not aware of  the benefits of story telling and spending quality time with their kids. They are happily satisfied  by providing them with expensive gifts and hi tech life. They have hope on quantities than the quality. Work is their higher priority.
  • Lack of interest: Social media and digital gadgets are becoming the most important in our life. They are slowly making us to be lazy.  Both parents and kids are not interested in traditional stories, games and discussions.
  • High homework stress to kids: Kids are being forced only to get academic excellence rather than getting real world knowledge. The performance of a kid is measured only by exam marks and not by his interests and talents.
  • Effect of Micro Families: In earlier days, my father and grandfather and all lived in the same house as joint family. And today micro / nuclear family is the trend. The parents are running for their life and the kids are dumped with the maids, or gadgets or  play schools. So nobody is there to tell them the fascinating stories.

Advantages to Cultural Storytelling 

While it is totally understandable that life gets in the way of creating a magical land fueld by imagination, the impact is tremendous. Science says that story telling has numerous benefits.

Moral values Get Rooted Deeply

Through stories and plays, it’s very easy to inculcate the moral values and positive things in the minds of kids. They get those values deep rooted in their hearts and will learn life lessons too.

Makes Younger Minds Malleable

 Younger minds can grasp easily and can learn the morals and values from the stories. It’s easier to built a positive attitude in the minds of younger kids than the grown up adults.

Encourages Kids To Be Curious

 Kids may be introduced with adventures, science fiction, riddles, and traditions through stories. They also develop their knowledge by exploring their culture, tradition and inventing new things.

Vocabulary Is Improved

By reading and listening, kids can improve their word power. They build their confidence in communicating their heart. They will be introduced with new words and thus their vocabulary gets improved.

Screen Gets Reduced

Story telling aids in lesser screen time. It keeps the kids creative and active. Their self confidence and the art of communication gets improved. This will lead to happier and stress free life.

Kid’s Memory and Focus  Enhances

By repeating and replaying the stories, kid’s memory and concentration power gets enhanced. It really helps in decision making and boosting their potential to face the life with much confidence.

Kids Develop Empathy

They develop a deeper understanding of the world around them, in terms of people, history and subtext. It is important to explore different varieties of stories like the ones we have in our cultural section.

Do you tell stories to your kids? What are your favorite stories? What is your favorite time in a day? List your suggestions for spending quality time with your kids. Looking forward to read your stories.

Cultural Storytelling - It's importance and impact on our kids. www.raisingworldchildren.com #cultures #storytelling #stories #kids #kidslearnfromstories #countries

Vasantha Vivek loves to call herself as a happy woman, daughter, sister, wife, mother, teacher, friend, mentor, seeker, lover. She’s from Kovilpatti, a small town of Southern Tamilnadu of India. She was a teacher by profession. She worked as a professor at an Engineering College for nearly 15 years. She has learned a lot as a teacher. She hopes that she had inspired some hearts during that period. Teaching is her passion Reading is her love. Cooking is her heart. She enjoys reading and writing very much. You can find her @mysweetnothings on Facebook and Twitter.