Krishna Janmashtami 2025: Here's why the festival is celebrated over 2 days

Updated on: Aug 15, 2025, 13:15:53 IST

By Adrija Dey

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Janmashtami is celebrated on 15 and 16 August. (Shutterstock)

Krishna Janmashtami 2025: Lord Krishna is worshipped by devotees with great faith. Here’s why the festival spans two days this year.

Janmashtami 2025: Krishna Janmashtami is celebrated by devotees with great pomp and fervour, marking the birth anniversary of Lord Krishna, the eighth avatar of Lord Vishnu. This festival is observed in the Ashtami Tithi of the Krishna Paksha in the month of Bhadrapada. Janmashtami is celebrated across India, with devotees fasting to seek blessings and participating in Dahi Handi events. As per Drik Pachang, this year it will be the 5252nd birth anniversary of Lord Krishna. In 2025, the festival will be observed over two days.

ALSO READ: Krishna Janmashtami 2025: From chia seeds to jaggery, here's how you can give your Janmashtami prasad a healthy twist

When is Krishna Janmashtami?

Devotees worship Lord Gopal, the child form of Krishna, on Janmashtami. (Unsplash)

This year, according to Drik Panchang, the auspicious festival will be celebrated over two days: August 15 and 16. The Ashtami Tithi begins at 11:49 PM on August 15, 2025, and ends at 9:34 PM on August 16, 2025.

Why is Janmashtami being celebrated over two days?

In 2025, Janmashtami spans over two days, beginning from the nightfall of August 15 itself, as per the Ashtami Tithi timings. Some devotees strictly adhere to the timings, while others wait for the alignment of Rohini Nakshatra, the star under which Lord Krishna was born. It depends on which factor is given priority: the tithi or nakshatra. Some strict followers of the timings begin observing Janmashtami rituals on August 15 itself, even if it’s just minutes away from the next day, making it a two-day celebration.

What are the rituals of Janmashtami?

There are many rituals that devotees perform on Janmashtami. These include observing a day-long fast; some even follow the Nirjala fast (a no-water fast), while others eat fruit only. Devotees also decorate their homes with flowers and lamps. Special aartis and pujas are performed in temples, which devotees attend. Devotees offer prasad to Lord Krishna as well, after puja.

In Maharashtra, especially, people form pyramids to break pots of curd hung above the ground, celebrating Lord Krishna's love for butter and his mischievous antics as a child. Many devotional songs and kirtans are also sung on this day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adrija Dey
Adrija Dey’s proclivity for observation fuels her storytelling instinct. As a lifestyle journalist, she crafts compelling, relatable narratives across diverse touchpoints of the human experience, including wellness, mental health, relationships, interior design, home decor, food, travel, and fashion that gently nudge readers toward living a little better. For her, stories exist in flesh and bones, carried by human vessels and shaped through everyday endeavours. It is the small stories we live and share that make us human. After all, humans and their lores are the most natural and raw repositories of stories, and uncovering them, for her, is akin to peeling an orange under a winter afternoon sun. Always up for a chat, she believes the best stories come from unfiltered yapping, where "too much information" is kind of the point. A graduate of Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, and an alumna of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, Adrija spends her idle hours cocooned with herbal tea and a gripping thriller, scribbling inner monologues she loosely calls poetic pieces, often with her succulents in attendance. On lazier days, she can be found binge-watching, for the nth time, one from her comfort-show holy trinity: The Office (US), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, or Modern Family. Dancing by herself to her peppy playlists, however, is an everyday ritual she swears by religiously.Read More

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