Indrotsava
Indrotsava · indra-utsava, “the festival of Indra”
The Indrotsava is the festival of Indra (Devendra), the ruler of the clouds and the waters, kept by the people of the vraja when the rains were over and the autumn (śarad) had come. The Brahma Purāṇa tells it as part of Śrī Kṛshṇa‘s childhood in the vraja: the gopas were eager to begin it, Śrī Kṛshṇa asked what it was, and at his word they set it aside and offered the giri-yajña to the mountain Govardhana instead. Indra, his festival broken, sent the Saṃvartaka clouds against the vraja, and Śrī Kṛshṇa lifted Govardhana to shelter them.
Why the festival was kept
Vyāsa tells the munis that as Rāma and Keśava played in the vraja, the rainy season passed. The lotuses bloomed, the sky grew clear and the stars shone. At that lovely time Śrī Kṛshṇa saw the people of the vraja eager to begin the Indrotsava, and he asked the elders with affection: “What is this Indrotsava? Why are you so joyful about it?”
Nanda answered him. Devendra, he said, is the ruler of the clouds and the waters. At his prompting the clouds rain down, as water, the rasa (essence) that sustains every living being. The people and all other beings live on the crops that ripen in that rain, and with them they satisfy the devas. The cows and their calves are satisfied by the grass that grows from the rain, and give milk. Where the clouds rain in season, no one suffers hunger. By the rays of Sūrya the cloud draws up the water of the earth and holds it, and rains it down again for the life of all the worlds. “So in the rainy season all kings worship Devendra with joy in this festival,” Nanda said, “and so do we and all beings worship Amarapati, the ruler of the devas.”
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 187
Śrī Kṛshṇa sets it aside
Śrī Kṛshṇa answered that the gopas were neither farmers nor traders: the cows were their devatā, and they lived in the forest. Of the four vidyās (branches of learning), ānvīkshikī, trayī, vārtā and daṇḍanīti, vārtā is three livelihoods: farming, trade and the keeping of cattle, and theirs was the protection of cows. Whatever a man lives by is his supreme devatā, to be honoured and worshipped. “The mountains are our supreme devatās,” he said. “Let us perform the giri-yajña and the go-yajña, the pūjā of the mountain and of the cows. What have we to do with Indra?” He asked them to worship Govardhana with every kind of offering, to feed the vipras and all who wanted food, to offer homa to the mountain, and to bring the herds home to Vrepalle crowned with autumn flowers.
Nanda and the gopas, their faces shining, praised his counsel, and the vraja offered the giri-yajña to Govardhana in place of the Indrotsava, with curd, pāyasa and meat, feeding the vipras in thousands, while the cows and the bellowing bulls went round the mountain in pradakshiṇa. Śrī Kṛshṇa, seated on the summit as the mountain devatā in visible form, received their offerings and granted them varas.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 187
Indra’s storm
Because the gopas had resolved that there was no need to hold the Indrotsava, Indra, in great anger, gathered the Saṃvartaka host of clouds. “Nanda, puffed up by the shelter of Kṛshṇa, has broken my festival,” he said, and he commanded them to pour a rain of stones on the cowherds and their cows, while he himself came on Airāvata to help with the winds. Śrī Kṛshṇa lifted the mountain Govardhana on one arm and held it up as an umbrella over the vraja for seven nights, until the clouds broke up and Indra’s resolve came to nothing. Then Indra came down to have darśana of Śrī Kṛshṇa, said that his anger at the breaking of his great festival had caused it all, and bathed Śrī Kṛshṇa in abhisheka, naming him Upendra.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 188
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapters 187–188