Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham Celebrated Gokulashtami 2022- an annual cultural festival
Reminding of the goal of making oneself and others happy, Gokulashtami was celebrated at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore campus with great fervor, enthusiasm, fanfare, and spirit by the university students.
Though it signifies the Janmashtami theme, Gokulashtami was initiated by Swami Abhayamritananda Puri, Pro-Chancellor, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham as the Youth Festival of the campus, with the aim to promote cultural integration and unity among students alongside advanced learning.
During the festival, the organising committee head at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham said: “The event is conceptualized and accomplished by our faculties and students, showing diverse skill sets like creativity, engineering, brainstorming and full implementation. Such experiences will give them life knowledge insights to our rich heritage and culture. Helps introspect and imbibe our learnings and skill sets enabling us to implement it to practical life alongside advanced learning for future. The philosophy of education is not just equipping students for a living, but also a formation for life with an emphasis on compassion-driven research to make impacts globally.”
The highlight of Amrita’s colorful celebrations was a procession in which all students, staff and residents of the Coimbatore campus participated. Richly decorated floats, grandly marched past, depicting various stages from the life of Sri Krishna. Accompanied by little girls and boys dressed as Krishnas and Gopikas, the floats made their way through the campus, stopping at various points, where students sang and danced. A total of 14 plots took part in the procession out of which 13 belonged to students of the campus and one to Amritapuri Ashram.With the support and guidance from the university, the students put in the great effort by continuously preparing for two months, to perform at the festival , conceptualized and accomplish the entire function, showing diverse skill sets like creativity, engineering, and brainstorming.
Students from various departments participated in the storytelling and presentation of the program. The main attraction of Gokulashtami was the display of various traditional art forms and martial arts Students participated in various competitions like dance, music, skit, quiz, elocution, painting and Rangoli, all on the theme of Sri Krishna.
A few major themes of the celebration were the story of Krishna as Partha’s Sarathi (Arjun’s charioteer), the birth of Krishna, Dasavatharam (a tale of the modern era), Krishna Bhakti, Kamsa Vadha (the killing of Kamsa), Krishna and Sudhama (a tale of true friendship), and life incidents of Shri Krishna.