His Bondage and Our Liberation

It was time for Lord Ranganathar’s thirumanjanam or holy bath. The curtains were firmly closed as the temple priest went about the ritual. Suddenly, he noticed a movement near one end of the drapes. The most respected acharyar of the Srivaishnavas, Sri Nanjeeyar, was peering at the Lord’s unclothed form with undisguised curiosity!

Shocked, the priest questioned this irreverent behaviour.

Pat came Sri Nanjeeyar’s reply, “I’m searching for the mark of the rope with which Mother Yashoda tied baby Krishna to the grinding stone, which gave Him the name of ‘Damodara’!”

The priest was perplexed. Mother Yashoda had tied up the naughty baby Krishna to the grinding stone in Dwaparayuga. How could the acharyar hope to find it on the holy form of Lord Ranganatha in this Kaliyuga? Probably Sri Nanjeeyar was so steeped in devotion that he got the two mixed up?

“But why are you seeking that rope-mark with such desperation? How does it matter whether you find it or not?”

Engrossed in his vision of the Lord, Sri Nanjeeyar replied, “If that mark is there – it means that for all His supremacy, the Lord is certainly within our grasp! If Mother Yashoda could tie Him up, then even we can do the same!”

“What rope will you use?” asked the priest indulgently

“Rope?” laughed Sri Nanjeeyar. “Do you think Mother Yashoda tied baby Krishna with a physical rope? Why, it was her love that tied Him up! When she struggled at first for so long to get the rope to go around Him, how was it that within an instant she had Him tied to the stone? Wasn’t it His willingness to be tied that made the impossible, possible? And what was it that made Him willing? Wasn’t it the infinite love of Mother Yashoda?”

Even as the baffled priest looked on, Sri Nanjeeyar walked away with a smile, leaving us with a valuable lesson.

In this world we find that anyone who has great power is often not accessible and one who may be very accessible to us does not have any great power. 

But the Lord is an exception.

He has a unique combination of two qualities – Paratvam and Saulabhyam – Supremacy and Accessibility. He, the Supreme Lord, the One who destroys the bondages of jeevas in this samsara, allowed the love of Mother Yashoda, to bind Him to a grinding stone! 

In His bondage, then, lies the secret to our liberation!

In this world we find that people don’t like to exhibit their weaknesses. The Lord is exactly opposite – He proudly took the name “Damodara” that openly proclaims His punishment at the hands of His mother! He sports the mark of the ‘damam’ or rope around His ‘udara’ or stomach, as an abharanam, an adornment!

Let this nature of the Lord give us eternal hope like it did to Sri Nanjeeyar – if we try to bind Him with unconditional love, wanting nothing in return, won’t He release us from the bondages of samsara?




Reference: Srimad Bhagavatam (Tamil) series of Sri. U. Ve. Velukudi Krishnan Swamy, Part 374