Kartik month the most auspicious month and is a most dear month to Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda. It is described in Hari Bhakti Vilasa 16/39,40, 

“na kartika samo maso na krtena samam yugam

  na veda sadrsam na tirtha gangaya samam

  kartikah pravaro maso vaisnavanam priyah sada

  kartikam skalam yastu bhaktya sevate vaisnavah”

“There is no other month equal to Kartika and there is no yuga equal to Satya-yuga. There is no scripture equal to the Vedas. There is no place of pilgrimage equal to the Ganges. Kartika is the chief of all months and is very dear to the Vaishnavas (devotees of Krishna). Therefore, the Vaisnavas serve the Supreme Lord with great devotion in this month.”

Kartik Month Start Date:

This year, Kartik Month falls from 17 October 2024 to 15 November 2024. 

Why Kartik is Known as Damodar Maas?

“Dama” means -“rope” and “udara ” means – “belly”

This month is also known as Damodar maas as little Krishna performed his sweetest pastime ‘Damodar lila’ in Kartik month on the day of Diwali. One beautiful morning, Mother Yashoda was churning milk, singing and remembering Krishna’s pastimes and little Krishna appeared before her. He was hungry and to increase her mother’s love, he wanted his mother Yashoda to stop churning and feed him her milk first. Mother Yashoda lovingly took Krishna on her lap and started feeding him her breast milk, she was relishing the moment and was looking at little Krishna’s beautiful face. Suddenly the milk that was kept on stove started boiling.

To stop milk from boiling and spilling all over Mother Yashoda at once put Krishna aside and went to the stove at that moment Krishna became very angry and his face became red in rage. To show his anger to Mother Yashoda, he broke butter pot, took butter out of it and began to eat. In meantime, Mother Yashoda returned and she saw a broken pot. Since she couldn’t find Krishna around, she concluded that Krishna might have done this, she started looking for Krishna around.

She found Krishna on the ceiling and feeding butter to monkeys. She took a stick in her hand to punish Krishna. She silently tried to catch hold of him but Krishna sensed her presence and he started running. Mother Yashoda chased him all around but little Krishna was running fast. Somehow she caught him. After being caught by her, little Krishna started crying. He smeared his lotus hand over his eyes filled with tears. He was in fear and was trying to cool down Mother Yashoda’s anger by showing his cute face but Mother Yashoda wanted to punish him, so she threw her stick and thought of binding him with ropes. It was impossible to bind his hands so she tried tying him up to grinding mortar. 

in this picture, Damodar lila has been shown of Kartik month

It’s impossible to bind the supreme personality of the godhead and this is the reason she was facing difficulty in tying Krishna, on the other hand seeing her mother struggling, Krishna agreed to be bound by her. After binding him, Mother Yashoda engaged herself in household affairs. After that Krishna saw two big trees around him known as Arjuna tree. Krishna thinks that Mother Yashoda did wrong to him by binding him to such big grinding mortar even after he didn’t commit any mistake, he blamed Mother Yashoda for leaving him without feeding him sufficient milk and as a result of this, he broke the pot and distributed all butter in charity to the monkeys. According to him, he didn’t do anything wrong so to do something more mischievous than before he planned to uproot two big arjuna trees. With all of his strength, he pulled grinding mortar in the direction of the arjuna tree and passed it between the two trees.

Krishna Lilaa, in this picture krishna lilaa has been shown in kartik month

 As a result of his persistent pulling of grinding mortar, the arjuna tree was uprooted, and two of Kuvera’s sons—named Nalapuvera and Manigriva—appeared from those trees. They were cursed by Naradmuni, therefore they turned into arjuna trees. By Krishna’s causeless mercy, they were again promoted to their life of demigods and they became great devotees of lord. After hearing the thunderbolt sound of a tree’s falling, Mother Yashoda, inhabitants of Gokul including Nand Maharaj came to the spot, they saw trees had fallen and they discovered no reason why they fell so they thought it must have been done by some demon. 

Thus, Krishna through Damodar Lila, showed us how one can bind him with the ropes of love, affection and devotion.

Saphala Ekadashi Donaton

Bring a smile to someone’s face by donating to Anna-Daan under the Food for Life program, and experience Krishna’s Divine shower of blessing in your life.