Today marks the beginning of the month of Kartik, a sacred month where Lord Sri Krishna is worshipped in His form as Damodar. Lord Damodar is the form of Sri Krishna where He is worshipped as a child. This month has several Hindu festivals happening in it, including Govardhan Puja, Deepawali and it ends in the festival of Ganga Snan.
Lord Damodar is the child form of Sri Krishna where He enacts a pastime in Vraj, Vrindavan with mother Yashoda. The pastime is as follows. Once upon a time, in Vrindavan mother Yashoda was feeding Lord Sri Krishna with her milk when suddenly the milk that was heating on the stove started to overflow. Realising this mother Yashoda immediately put down baby Krishna and ran to attend it. This got Lord Krishna a bit angry and he started doing his mischief. He ran here and there, started breaking pots of yoghurt and feeding them to the monkeys. When mother Yashoda saw all this she started chasing Lord Damodar with a stick in her hands.
Photo credits: Iskcon
Finally she managed to catch baby Krishna and to prevent him from doing further mischief, she decided to tie him to a wooden mortar with ropes. However, each time as she was trying to tie baby Krishna something wonderful was happening. The rope was falling two inches short every time. Even though she was calling the gopis of Vrindavan to get more ropes, every time the rope fell two inches short. Mother Yashoda loving appealed to Lord Krishna to allow her to bind Him and finally Lord Sri Krishna relented seeing her efforts. She then could go on to do her household chores.
Photo credits: Iskcon Blog
However, baby Krishna was not one to keep quiet. Mother Yashoda became busy in her household work and Lord Krishna started getting bored. As a baby He started crawling towards the courtyard with the wooden mortar where He used to play. Suddenly, the wooden mortar got stuck between two peculiar trees in His courtyard. Lord Sri Damodar continued pulling the wooden mortar and the trees couldn’t withstand Lord Sri Krishna’s strength. They suddenly fell down with a huge thunderous sound and from the trees, two demigods appeared named Manigriva and Nalakuvara. These demigods used to live in the heavenly planets in their previous lives but they were cursed by Sage Narada to take birth as trees because they didn’t show proper respect to him when they were enjoying in a lake. They thanked Lord Krishna for having delivered them and given them Darshan, thus returning to their abodes
At the same time, Nanda Maharaj rushed to the courtyard to see what had happened and picked up baby Krishna from the ground. He also lovingly reprimanded mother Yashoda for having left Krishna unattended while she was doing her chores. Both of them then played with Lord Damodar giving their priceless devotional love to Him. This pastime is a lesson in devotion in itself and devotees every day during this month sing the Damodarastakam prayers which can be viewed here (https://www.iskconbangalore.org/blog/deliverance-of-nalakuvara-and-manigriva/)
Kartik month is a unique month for Vaishnavas as many of them undertake to perform extra bhakti because any amount of bhakti done in this month is multiplied many times. This month is particularly dear to Lord Krishna as devotees every day offer a ghee lamp to Sri Sri Radha Krishna, mother Yashoda and Lord Damodar. Many devotees go to pilgrimage places like Vrindavan and Haridwar during this month to pray for the blessings of their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Krishna.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Sri Sri Radha Golokananda (Iskcon Phoenix, Mauritius)
By Krishna Leela Prakash (This 17 October 2024)
All image credits: ISKCON
Srimad Bhagavatam
The Founder Acharya: His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
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