Krishna ExperienceThe broken pot
One morning Yashoda was churning butter and singing about her son when he came to nurse. As he drank, the milk on the stove began to boil over, and she put him down to save it. Krishna, annoyed, bit his lip, broke the churning pot with a stone, took the fresh butter into a dark room, climbed onto an upturned mortar and fed it to the monkeys.
Two fingers short
Yashoda came back, saw the mess and followed the trail of butter footprints. Krishna saw her stick and ran, and she chased him, and caught him. She decided to tie him to the heavy wooden mortar so he would stay out of trouble. The rope was two fingers short. She knotted on another rope, and it was still two fingers short. She brought every rope in the house, and every rope in Gokul, and the gap stayed two fingers wide while the neighbours laughed.
Only when he saw his mother sweating, her hair coming loose and flowers falling from her braid, did Krishna allow himself to be bound. The God who cannot be held by anything let himself be caught by love. Because the rope (dama) went round his belly (udara), he is called Damodar.
Try to tie him yourselfIn A Day in Vrindavan, the rope is two fingers short until love finishes the job.The twin trees
Tied to the mortar, Krishna crawled out to the courtyard, where two great arjuna trees grew side by side. He pulled the mortar between them, and the trees crashed down. From them stepped two shining beings, Nalakuvara and Manigriva, sons of Kubera, who had been cursed by the sage Narada to stand as trees until Krishna freed them.
Damodar month
The month of Kartik (October–November) is called Damodar month by Vaishnavas. Every evening devotees offer ghee lamps to the child Damodar while singing the Damodarashtakam, eight verses that begin namamishvaram sach-chid-ananda-rupam, "I bow to the Lord, whose form is eternal, conscious bliss."
Questions people ask
What does Damodar mean?
From dama (rope) and udara (belly): the one whose belly was bound with a rope, by his mother Yashoda.
Why is Kartik called Damodar month?
Vaishnavas associate the Damodar leela with Kartik and offer lamps to Damodar every evening of the month while singing the Damodarashtakam.