Damodhara - Infinity

 

Damodar means “One who has rope around his belly’. Dam – Rope, Udar – Stomach/Belly.

What is the inner meaning of this story? If you observe the object, Yahodha tied Krishna to Infinity -Stone Mill. In olden days, they put paddy in that and ladies crush it with perpendicular fat wood. This is how paddy is converted to rice. To explain the infinite nature of Krishna, she chases him. He was may be 4 year old boy, giggling and running. She can’t catch him. Krishna gives up for his mother. She catches him tried to tie him with a rope. She couldn’t because of infinity. Again Krishna gives up. She ties him to infinity. Then onwards he is also called Damodhara, the one who has infinite thread around his waist. To convey we are also infinite in nature like Damodhar, we tie black or red thread around our waist. If you observe nature it is full of infinity. Thus Krishna is infinite.

One day, when Mother Yashoda saw that all of the maidservants were already engaged, she personally began to churn the yogurt, and while doing so, she composed songs about Krishna’s childhood pastimes and enjoyed singing them to herself. Dressed in a saffron-yellow sari, with a belt tied around her full hips, Mother Yashoda worked hard, so that as her whole body shook, and her bangles and earrings tinkled. Because of intense love for her child, her breasts were wet with milk. Her beautiful face was wet with perspiration, and malati flowers fell from her hair.

While Mother Yashoda was churning butter, Lord Krishna appeared before her, desiring to drink the milk from her breast. Being hungry, Krishna caught hold of the churning rod, to prevent His mother from churning further. Mother Yashoda happily embraced Krishna, and then, taking Him upon her lap, she fed him her milk. While feeding krishna she enjoyed seeing the beauty of His face.

The milk that kept for boiling was overflowing. She left Krishna hurriedly to remove the milk pot from the oven. Krishna was annoyed at this as she had left without feeding him. He was hungry. Krishna took a stone and struck a curd/butter pot letting the butter flow out in streams. In meantime Yashodha was searching for Krishna. She saw him enjoying the butter. This angered Yoshoda.

Yashoda ran behind Krishna who was very swift escaping from place to place. Finally Krishna wanted to relieve Yashoda's aching legs and therefore voluntarily got caught. Yashoda now wanted to strike Krishna with a cane she was carrying. Seeing the beautiful Krishna bursting into tears rubbing his eyes with his little fist, Yashoda was moved and gave up the idea to beat him.

However, she looked for an alternative punishment. She took a long rope and tied one end of it to a dumb bell shaped stone mill. The other end of it, she wanted to tie around Krishna's waist. The rope proved smaller by a few inches. Any number of ropes miraculously proved shorter and could not suffice tying Krishna. Finally Krishna accepted the task and tied himself. This incident got the wonderful name 'Damodar' to Krishna.

After Tying Krishna With Mortar ( Ukhal) Yashoda set about doing some household job. Krishna sat down on his knees and caused the mortar to tumble down so that it could roll when drawn. Now he began to crawl on his knees towards the twin trees standing in front of the house.The twin trees were, in fact, the two sons of Kubera–the god of wealth. Their names were Nal Kuber and Manigreeva. It was because of a curse that they had been turned to trees. The story goes that once these two brothers, after taking wine, were having their bath in the company of their wives. All of a sudden, Saint Narda happened to come there. Seeing him, both the ladies put on their clothes and got aside. But both the brothers, intoxicated as they were, kept standing naked before the saint. The saint could not tolerate their impertinence and uttered a curse on them,” Go and stand as trees in Gokul for ever.”

Hearing the curse, the wives of both the brothers got worried and they beseeched the saint to excuse their husbands. the saint replied, “They will be rid of this curse when Lord Vishnu appears in Gokul as Krishna.” Since the curse was uttered these trees had been standing in front of Nand Baba’s house. So, to keep up the word given by Saint Narda to the wives of the two brothers, Krishna dragged the mortar crawling in between the trees. The mortar got stuck up between them and when Krishna exerted force, the trees got uprooted and fell down. As soon as the trees fell down, they changed into their real forms as sons of Kubera. With folded hands, they began to praise Krishna and after seeking his permission, they returned to their place. Nand Baba and Yashoda came out running. They untied their son Krishna and fondled him time and again whereupon Krishna began to smile.

The two tree represents the duality and also once this is understood as infinity, the ignorance and maya is shattered by Krishna, thus you see his darshan.