திருவாய்ப்பாடி

Three Alvars sang mangalasasanam here (Periyalvar, Andal (the only woman among the twelve Alvars) and Thirumangai Alvar) together contributing 22 pasurams, among the higher counts for any Divya Desam in the Vada Nadu region. That three separate Alvars, across different generations and devotional styles, all chose to sing of this one small riverside village says something about how central Gokul is to Krishna devotion generally, well beyond its formal place on the Divya Desam list.

Where Mathura, a few kilometres away, is remembered for Krishna's birth and his eventual return to reclaim his kingdom, Gokul is remembered for the years in between, the tender, domestic leela of an ordinary cowherd childhood that Periyalvar's own verses linger over so lovingly elsewhere in the Prabandham.

Temple tradition holds that the infant Krishna was carried across the Yamuna by his father Vasudeva on the night of his birth, through heavy rain and a swollen river, to escape the demon king Kamsa's decree against Devaki's children, and left in the care of the village chieftain Nanda and his wife Yashoda. Gokul is also associated with Krishna's subduing of the multi-headed serpent Kaliya, who had poisoned a stretch of the Yamuna until Krishna danced upon its many hoods and drove it from the river.

Nand Bhavan, traditionally identified as Nanda and Yashoda's own home and popularly called the Chaurasi Khamba (eighty-four pillar) temple for its distinctive pillared hall, remains one of the principal shrines associated with this period of Krishna's life, its walls carrying paintings of his butter-theft and other childhood leelas. Nearby, the sand expanse known as Raman Reti is traditionally held to be where the child Krishna played with the cowherds and their cattle, and devotees still visit it as part of a Gokul pilgrimage.

As with much of the wider Mathura-Vrindavan region, Gokul's temple structures have been rebuilt and reworked many times across the centuries; today's shrines reflect this later devotional architecture rather than any structure from the Divya Desam's earliest period.

Krishna Janmashtami, marking Krishna's birth, is the most significant festival observed in the wider Gokul-Mathura-Vrindavan region, with Gokul specifically drawing pilgrims for its association with the days immediately following the birth.

Darshan at Gokul is usually combined with visits to Nand Bhavan and Raman Reti as part of a single circuit around the town's Krishna-leela sites; current timings and any access arrangements are best confirmed locally, as they can vary by shrine.