celebrating birth of Sri Krishna ~ : கண்ணன் பிறந்த 'ஸ்ரீஜெயந்தி' : Sri Jayanthi 2026

 

celebrating birth of Sri Krishna ~ Sri Jayanthi 2026 :

கண்ணன் பிறந்த 'ஸ்ரீஜெயந்தி'

Imp Pre-script :  A lengthy post – more of a historical perspective about the land of Krishna – Mathura, how it was plundered and yet survived to remind us the noble Sree Krishna.  Do respond with your feedback!! 

 

Today  Friday, Sept, 4 – 2026 – 18^th day of Aavani – Rohini Nakshathiram – Ashtami is -  Sri Jayanthi – the day of Thiruvavatharam of Bhagwan Sree Krishna -  being celebrated grandly  at Thiruvarangam, Thiruvallikkeni and every other divyadesams.. ..  at  every home -  in the manner of Lord Krishna being born there  – devotees are elated.  We, the followers of the lotus feet of Sri Krishna,  paint the footsteps of little Krishna – exhibiting His walking inside our home,  do Thirumanjanam for the vigraha at home, make Him adorn new  clothes; offer Him choicest dishes made with love at home. We also offer Him variety of fruits including blue jamuns.  But the circumstances of Sree Krishna's birth were far removed from such festivity and splendour — He was born in a prison, in the most testing of times for His parents! 

கண்ணன் பிறந்த நந்நாளை எல்லா திருகோவில்களிலும், எல்லோருடைய இல்லங்களிலும் சிறப்புற கொண்டாடுகிறோம்.  நம் இல்லத்துக்கு பால கிருஷ்ணன் தளர்நடை நடந்து வருவதை வியந்து  கண்ணனின் திருப்பாதங்களை வரைந்து,  பூஜை அறையில், கண்ணபிரானை நீராட்டி, புது ஆடை உடுத்தி, அவருக்கு பலவித பழங்களையும்,  பக்ஷணங்களையும் படைத்தது நாம் கொண்டாடுகிறோம். இன்று 'ஸ்ரீஜெயந்தி' என்று சிறப்புற கொண்டாடப்படுகிறது.  இன்றைய கால கட்டத்தில், 'ஜெயந்தி' என்பது 'பிறந்த தினத்தை'  குறிப்பது என்பது போல - பல 'ஜெயந்திகள்' மக்களால் கொண்டாடப்படுகின்றன !  ஆனால் 'ஸ்ரீ ஜெயந்தி' என்பது பகவான் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணர் பிறந்த தினத்தை மட்டுமே குறிக்க வல்லது.

Sree Krishna’s birth occurred at Madura – have had the fortune of worshipping at Janmasthan no, of times – in earlier days used to travel from Faridabad – Ballabgarh – Delhi-Agra Road – reach Mathura.  The best   and fastest road route from Delhi to Mathura is via the Yamuna Expressway, taking about 3 to 3.5 hours for a distance of roughly 160–180 km.   Path: Delhi → Noida → Greater Noida → Yamuna Expressway → Exit near Jewar/Mathura via NH-19.

Mathura! – the very name transports us to that dark prison cell where Devaki and Vasudeva awaited the birth of the Divine Child.   Bhagwan Sree Krishna was born at Mathura, the capital of the ancient Surasena country, ruled then by Kamsa, the maternal uncle of Krishna. On that sacred Ashtami night, with Rohini Nakshatram, the Lord descended amongst us – “அவதரித்தார் ” – not in a palace amidst royal splendour, but inside a prison!

Mathura is the heart of what we fondly call Braj Bhoomi – the sacred landscape associated with Krishna's birth, childhood and leelas: Mathura, Gokul, Mahavan, Vrindavan, Govardhan, Nandgaon, Barsana and the many other places sanctified by association with Kannan.  The antiquity of Mathura goes far beyond the historical age. In our Itihasa-Purana tradition, this region was Madhuvana, associated with the asura Lavana. Sri Rama's brother Shatrughna slew Lavana and established his city here, traditionally called Madhupuri or Mathura.

The Q – how old is Mathura in recorded history could spring up !!  ~  The absence of very ancient standing temples in Mathura cannot by itself be used to argue for the absence of an ancient sacred landscape. Repeated destruction and rebuilding over many centuries have inevitably erased much of its earlier architectural record.  

The grandeur of ancient Mathura need not be reconstructed merely from Hindu tradition. Even the chroniclers who recorded its conquest stood amazed before the city and its temples. More than a century ago, in 1906, Rev. J. E. Scott published Braj — The Vaishnava Holy Land. Scott was no admirer of Vaishnavism; indeed, his avowed purpose was missionary and his comments on Sri Krishna and Hindu worship are often deeply prejudiced. Yet, perhaps for that very reason, some of the historical testimony preserved in his book is fascinating. For when Scott turns from theology to the history of Mathura, there emerges before us the picture of an ancient sacred city of extraordinary splendour — a city of massive stone buildings, innumerable shrines and a principal temple whose magnificence astonished even the chroniclers of its conquerors.

Then came destruction — not once, but repeatedly.

Scott presents Mathura as a city of extraordinary antiquity, passing through Hindu, Buddhist and again Hindu phases. By the early eleventh century, he says, it had again become an overwhelmingly Brahmanical/Hindu city. He then introduces Mahmud of Ghazni's sack of Mathura in 1018. The contemporary/early Muslim description quoted by Scott is particularly striking. Mathura, he says, was a city built of hard stone, with great gateways towards the Yamuna and massive foundations protecting the city from floods. He records that there were “thousands of houses with idol temples attached”.

Scott reproduces the description of Mathura found in the Muslim historical tradition when Mahmud of Ghazni reached it in 1017. The city, he says, was built of hard stone, with massive foundations along the Yamuna. There were thousands of houses with temples attached, built in masonry and strengthened with iron.  But what astonished Mahmud's chronicler was the principal temple in the middle of Mathura. Scott quotes him: “In the middle of the city was a temple, larger and finer than the rest”  ~  and says that neither painting nor description could adequately represent it. The chronicler estimated that reproducing such a structure would require an almost unimaginable expenditure and two hundred years of work, even with the most accomplished craftsmen.

 

Illustrations from Mathura District Memoirs – FS Growse 1883

That is remarkable evidence because the praise comes through the literature of the conquerors, not from a Vaishnava source. Scott then changes abruptly from admiration of Mathura to its destruction.  He records that Mahmud descended upon the sacred city in 1017 and “gave it up to plunder.” Temples were demolished; Scott records more than one hundred camel-loads of costly images, including five large gold images ornamented with rubies and other precious stones.  

He impactfully states :  “For twenty days this ruthless work of plunder went on”.  Scott gives the traditional estimate as three million rupees in booty and more than five thousand captives.  The gold-and-silver figures are not something invented by Scott in 1906. Accounts derived from the earlier Muslim chronicles similarly speak of five large gold images and an enormous quantity of silver images.  There is an interesting way of looking at this: the magnitude of the loot indirectly measures the prosperity of pre-conquest Mathura.

Scott's description of the reign of Sikandar Lodi (1488–1516) is unusually graphic. He quotes the account that Sikandar: “entirely ruined the shrines of Mathura” and converted principal temples into sarais and colleges. Scott then records the deliberate indignity of giving stone images to butchers to be used as meat weights. Religious bathing and even access to barbers for customary shaving were restricted.  Scott himself pauses at this point. He observes that when one understands Hindu aversion to meat and the importance of ceremonial bathing and shaving, one can appreciate the deliberate humiliation involved.

Then comes one of the most evocative descriptions. Scott cites the seventeenth-century French traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who saw the great Kesava Deva temple before its destruction. Tavernier regarded it as: “one of the most sumptuous edifices in all India”. Scott says the temple had cost around thirty lakhs of rupees and quotes Tavernier saying that it was so lofty and magnificent that it could be seen from five or six kos away.  Imagine the skyline of seventeenth-century Mathura: the great Kesava Deva temple rising above the city and visible to an approaching traveller from miles away.

Scott (1906), though mistaken about the precise year, records the destruction of the great Kesava Deva temple under Aurangzeb; archaeological and contemporary historical evidence places the event around 1669–70.  Scott also reproduces the striking account that images from the shrine were taken to Agra and placed beneath mosque steps so that people would walk over them. Cunningham quotes essentially the same passage from the Maasir through Growse.

Scott, though certainly not writing with such an intent, nevertheless leaves us an evocative description of Krishna-bhakti.   He observes that pilgrims came to Braj from throughout India, “especially from the south,” travelling the sacred 84-kos circuit through Govardhan, Nandgaon, Barsana, Vrindavan and Mahavan. He writes: “To spend some time along the Jamuna with Krishna is the highest ambition of the devout Hindu.” He even records the Vaishnava belief that one day in Mathura is more meritorious than an entire lifetime in Benares.  

Mahmud of Ghazni's forces plundered Mathura for twenty days in 1017. Centuries later came the depredations under Sikandar Lodi. The magnificent Kesava Deva temple, which the European traveller Tavernier regarded as one of the most sumptuous edifices in India and which could reportedly be seen from miles away, was destroyed under Aurangzeb. Scott finally observes that centuries of “plunder and rapine” had almost wiped away the physical traces of the magnificent older Hindu city.

Yet Mathura survived.  The Yamuna continued to flow past Vishram Ghat; pilgrims continued their Braj Parikrama; Govardhan, Gokul, Nandgaon and Vrindavan continued to draw devotees. Dynasties disappeared and monuments were destroyed, but the sacred geography and memory of Krishna remained alive. Perhaps therein lies the greater glory of Mathura — not merely in what once stood there, but in what could not be erased.

 

Mathura Sri Krishna Janmasthan

 

This is Mathura – the birth land Brij bhoomi of Bhagwan Sree Krishna. The Lord who chose a prison for His birthplace did not require the magnificence of a palace. Devaki and Vasudeva were imprisoned; The doors were locked; Kamsa appeared all-powerful; Yet when the ordained moment arrived, neither the prison walls nor the chains nor the might of Kamsa could prevent His Avatharam.

Perhaps the subsequent history of Mathura carries an unintended parallel; Temples could be demolished; Images could be carried away; The city could be plundered; Even its name could be ordered to be changed.  Yet centuries later, countless devotees continue to come to Mathura, Gokul, Vrindavan and Govardhan, chanting the name of the same Kannan  Emperuman.

The physical city suffered repeatedly. The sacred geography survived. The memory survived. The faith survived. and on Sri Jayanthi, our thoughts naturally travel from wherever we are to that sacred prison at Mathura where Devaki Piratti gave birth to the Lord of the Universe. In the beautiful words of Swami Nammalwar:

ஆறு எனக்கு நின் பாதமே

சரணாகத் தந்தொழிந்தாய்

உனக்கோர் கைம்மாறு நான் ஒன்றிலேன்

எனதாவியும் உனதே !!

The refuge is His lotus feet alone. On this sacred Sri Jayanthi, let us remember the little child of Mathura, the darling of Gokulam, the Govardhanadhari, Gitacharyan and our own Thiruvallikkeni Sri Parthasarathi – Kannan!

கண்ணன் கழலிணை நண்ணும் மனமுடையீர்

எண்ணும் திருநாமம் திண்ணம் நாரணமே.

Sri Krishnarpanam. Jai Sri Krishna!

இனிய ஸ்ரீ ஜெயந்தி நல்வாழ்த்துகள்.
 ஸர்வம் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணார்ப்பணம்.

 

adiyen Srinivasadhasan
Mamandur Veeravalli Srinivasan Sampathkumar
4^th Sept 2026 – celebrating birth of Sree Krishna – Sree Jayanthi today!