Devotees offer ghee lamps to
Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Krishna-chandra during the auspicious
month of Karthika. Thousands join to celebrate the spiritually
enlivening month-long Deepotsava festival to the accompaniment of
soul-stirring devotional music.
The enchanting song describing Damodara lila of Lord Krishna is sung to commemorate this pastime of the lord.
Once
when mother Yashoda was feeding her lovely son Krishna, she noticed
that the milk on the stove was overflowing. So she immediately put
Krishna down and went to attend this. Child Krishna, for His own
pleasure, became angry due to being abandoned in that manner by His
mother. So He broke the pot of butter kept there for churning and ate
the butter in a secluded place. Mother Yashoda sought Krishna all
over. She found a big wooden grinding mortar, which was kept upside
down, and she found her son sitting on it. Krishna saw her coming to
Him with a stick in her hand, and immediately He got down from the
grinding mortar and began to flee in fear.Mother Yashoda chased Him all around the garden. Although she was tired, she somehow reached her naughty child and captured Him. Mother Yashoda then threw away her stick. In order to punish Him, she endeavored to bind Him up to the wooden grinding mortar. But when she tried to bind Him, she found that the rope she was using was short by two inches. She gathered more ropes from the house and joined them, but at the end she found the same shortage. In attempting to bind her son, she became tired. She was perspiring, and the garland on her head fell down.
Then Lord Krishna appreciated the hard labor of His mother, and being compassionate upon her, He agreed to be bound by the ropes. Krishna, playing as a human child in the house of mother Yashoda, was performing His own selected pastimes.
During
this festival, ISKCON Sri Radha Krishna Mandir, Bangalore is decorated
with thousands of lamps and there is display of grand fireworks. The
temple altar is decorated with lamps of various shapes and sizes and a
song, Damodarashtaka, is sung during the arati. During this month the devotees take a vow to offer a ghee lamp to the Deities of Sri Sri Radha Krishna-chandra everyday.
