The Govardhan.
Following the Diwâlî comes what is known as the Govardhan, or Godhan, which is a purely rural feast. In parts of the North-Western Provinces, the women, on a platform outside the house, make a little hut of mud and images of Gaurî and Ganesa; there they place the parched grain which the girls offered on the night of the Diwâlî; near it they lay some thorny grass, wave a rice pounder round the hut, and invoke blessings on their relations and friends. This is also a cattle feast, and cowherds come round half drunk and collect presents from their employers. They sing, “May this house grow as the sugar-cane grows, as Ganga increases at the sacred confluence of Prayâg!”
In the Panjâb “the women make a Govardhan of cowdung, which consists of Krishna lying on his back surrounded with little cottage loaves of dung to represent mountains, in which are stuck stems of grass with tufts of cotton or rag on the top for trees, and by little dung balls for cattle, watched by dung men dressed in little bits of rag. Another opinion is that the cottage loaves are cattle, and the dung balls calves. On this they put the churn-staff, five white sugar-canes, some parched rice, and a lamp in the middle. The cowherds are then called in, and they salute the whole, and are fed with rice and sweets. The Brâhman then takes the sugar-cane and eats a bit, and till then no one must eat, cut, or press cane. Rice-milk is then given to the Brâhmans, and the bullocks have their horns dyed and are extra well fed.”[19]
The Emperor Akbar, we are told, used to join in this festival.[20]
The custom in Cawnpur, known as the Dâng, or “Club,” Diwâlî is very similar. The cowherds worship Govardhan in the form of a little heap of cowdung decorated with cotton, and go round to the houses of the persons whose cattle they graze, dance to the music of two sticks beaten together and a drum played by a Hindu weaver, and get presents of grain, cloth, or money.[21]