Gopa Ashtami 1922

From the Bhagavata Purana

Gopa Ashtami means "the Ashtami of the cowherd". It remembers the time when little Krishna became a gopa, a keeper of cows.

The Bhagavata Purana tells how Krishna and his elder brother Balarama grew up in Vraja, in the home of Nanda and Yashoda. As small children they filled the whole village with joy through their play and their sweet, halting baby talk. When they were a little older, they were given the calves to look after, and they became calf keepers. With the other boys of Vraja they took the calves out near the village and played among them like ordinary children.

Then the Purana says that when Rama and Krishna reached the age the scripture calls pauganda, the years between about six and ten, the cowherd elders of Vraja agreed that they could now tend the cows themselves. From then on the two brothers went out each day with their friends, driving the herds of cows to pasture. Walking with their own feet over the land of Vrindavan, they made that forest very holy.

So Krishna, the Lord of all, became a cowherd boy. This is why he is lovingly called Gopala, "the protector of cows".

Another story

This is the katha traditionally told in Braj and by those who keep Gopa Ashtami; the sources that tell it do not name a scripture for it. Until this time Krishna had only been allowed to take the calves out near the village. As he grew older he wanted to go to the forest with the full herd of cows, like the older cowherds. He asked again and again. Nanda had an auspicious day chosen for this first herding, and the day chosen was the Ashtami of the bright half of Kartika.

That morning Yashoda dressed Krishna and Balarama with care, and the boys set out with the other cowherd boys, leading the cows to the forest for the first time. Krishna went barefoot. A cowherd tends the cows on foot without sandals, and Krishna kept that rule, walking over the stones and thorns of the forest paths beside his cows.

Since that day, the families say, the Ashtami of the bright half of Kartika has been honoured as Gopa Ashtami, the day Krishna became a true gopa, and the day on which cows and their keepers are honoured.