Govardhana-puja is the day Krsna chose to cut off Indra’s ego. Thus He preached to all the vraja-vasis to worship only Govardhana since it provided everything necessary for the cows. So Nanda Maharaja arranged for the puja of Govardhana and the vrajavasis made huge amounts of many different preparations to be offered to Govardhana like rice, puris, chapatis, halwa, sweet bread, sweet rice, rasagollas, all types of milk sweets, etc. for the pleasure of Govardhana. Being very pleased with the vraja-vasis, Govardhana personally appeared to accept their offerings. This puja of Govardhana is also popularly known as Annakuta festival.
In 1974 in Mayapur, on Govardhana-puja day, poor local children were fighting with dogs for the remnants of food from leaf plates thrown out after a Govardhana-puja feast. Seeing the children in this situation, Srila Prabhupada declared that no one should go hungry within a ten mile radius of our temple. And thus prasada distribution was born in ISKCON.
Take advantage of this Govardhana-puja festival to sposor an annakuta festival to Govardhana and distribute the prasada to devotees, pilgrims, visitors, guests and everybody else.
The day after Diwali is referred to as Annakuta, or Govardhan Puja. On this day the inhabitants of Vrindavan (Lord Krishna’s abode on Earth) would hold a harvest festival in honor of King Indra, the demigod who provided the rains essential for the harvest.
One day, however, Lord Krishna wanted to teach Indra a lesson. He convinced the inhabitants of Vrindavan to honor Govardhan Hill instead, whose fertile soil provided the grass upon which the cows and bulls grazed, and to honor the cows and bulls who provided milk and ploughed the lands. Outraged, Indra retaliated with terrifying thunderstorms. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, calmly lifted Govardhan Hill with the little finger of his left hand. For seven days and seven nights the Lord held up Govardhan Hill, providing a giant umbrella to shelter the inhabitants of Vrindavan from the torrential rain. Realizing the futility of his actions, King Indra bowed down before the Lord with folded hands and offered prayers of supplication. In this way, Lord Krishna demonstrated that He is Deva Deva, the lord of the demigods, and that any purpose for which demigods might be worshiped could easily be served by worshiping Him, the cause of all causes.
Several thousand years later, on this same day, Srila Madhavendra Puri established a temple for the self-manifest Gopala Deity on top of Govardhan Hill.
To celebrate this festival, devotees build a replica of Govardhan Hill made of various opulent foods, worship Lord Krishna as the lifter of Govardhan Hill, worship the hill as His incarnation, and worship the cows and bulls who are dear to the Lord.
At the end of the festival, the hill of prasada (sanctified food) is distributed to the public. All Vaishnava temples in India observe this ceremony, and hundreds of people are given prasada according to the capacity of each temple.
