ISKCON’s New Surabhi Kunj conducted programmes especially Damodara Arati in many places around south Bengaluru during the month of Karthika. In ST Bed it was conducted at the residence of Aravind last week.
“This month of Karthika we celebrate the Damodara Arati for Lord Krishna in this most merciful form. Kartik (Damodar) …The Holiest Month”, says Aravind of New Surabhi Kunj.
“Kartik (Damodar) is the best, the purest of purifiers, and most glorious of all months. Kartik month is particularly dear to Lord Sri Krishna. This month is full of bhakta vatsalya. Any vrata, even the smallest, will yield huge results. The effect of performing a Kartik Vrata lasts for one hundred lifetimes, Kartik or the festival of offering lamps to Lord Krishna, glorifies Lord Krishna’s pastime of being bound with ropes by Mother Yashoda”, he says.
India’s most popular festival, Deepavali, falls in the month of Kartika. According to scriptures, Lord Krishna enacted the Damodara-lila on the day of Deepavali. In this pastime, which is described in the Tenth Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam, Krishna angered Mother Yashoda by breaking a pot of butter. Krishna then ran away when he saw a furious Yashoda chasing him. After a great struggle, Yashoda caught baby Krishna and tried to bind him with rope to a grinding mortar. But surprisingly, she found the rope she was using was two inches too short.
Although she added more rope, every time she tried to bind Krishna she found the rope was short by exactly two inches. Finally, Krishna, appreciating his mother’s hard endeavor, agreed to be bound. Devotees then began to call him Damodara, “one whose udara (belly) is bound by dama (ropes).”
