Govardhan Puja / Annakut

Govardhan Puja recalls the Bhagavata tradition in which Krishna persuaded the people of Vraja to honour Govardhan Hill, the cows and the land that sustained them instead of performing their customary offering to Indra. Angered, Indra sent destructive rain over the settlement. Krishna lifted Govardhan Hill and held it like a vast umbrella, giving shelter to the people and cattle until the storm ended. Indra then recognised Krishna's divine power and withdrew his pride. The story gives the festival themes of humility, protection, gratitude to nature and devotion to Krishna. Many households make a symbolic Govardhan from cow dung or earth and worship cows, while Vaishnava temples prepare Annakut—literally a 'mountain of food'—with many dishes arranged before the deity and later distributed as prasada. In Gujarat, Annakut is especially prominent on the Gujarati New Year and is celebrated grandly in Swaminarayan and other Vaishnava temples.

Govardhan Puja / Annakut is valued for devotion, family tradition and the spiritual or seasonal meaning attached to the day.

Temples build annakut - a mound of cooked food, sometimes a hundred dishes and sometimes a thousand, arranged in front of the image and distributed afterwards. At home a small hill of cow dung is made and decorated. In Gujarat it falls on Bestu Varas, so the new year morning and the food hill are the same day.

Braj and the Pushtimarg temples of Gujarat and Rajasthan keep it largest, with hundreds of dishes. In Maharashtra the same day is Padwa, the husband-and-wife day; in Gujarat it doubles as Bestu Varas. Much of the south does not keep it at all.