evaá¹ sva-geha-dÄmÄni
yaÅ›odÄ sandadhaty api
gopÄ«nÄá¹ susmayantÄ«nÄá¹
smayantÄ« vismitÄbhavat
evam - in this manner; sva-geha-dÄmÄni - all the ropes available in the household; yaÅ›odÄ - mother YaÅ›odÄ; sandadhati api - although she was joining one after another; gopÄ«nÄm - when all the other elderly gopÄ« friends of mother YaÅ›odÄ; su-smayantÄ«nÄm - were all taking pleasure in this funny affair; smayantÄ« - mother YaÅ›odÄ was also smiling; vismitÄ abhavat - all of them were struck with wonder.
Thus mother YaÅ›odÄ joined whatever ropes were available in the household, but still she failed in her attempt to bind Kṛṣṇa. Mother YaÅ›odÄ’s friends, the elderly gopÄ«s in the neighborhood, were smiling and enjoying the fun. Similarly, mother YaÅ›odÄ, although laboring in that way, was also smiling. All of them were struck with wonder.
Actually this incident was wonderful because Kṛṣṇa was only a child with small hands. To bind Him should have required only a rope not more than two feet long. All the ropes in the house combined together might have been hundreds of feet long, but still He was impossible to bind, for all the ropes together were still too short. Naturally mother YaÅ›odÄ and her gopÄ« friends thought, “How is this possible?†Seeing this funny affair, all of them were smiling. The first rope was short by a measurement the width of two fingers, and after the second rope was added, it was still two fingers too short. If the shortness of all the ropes were added together, it must have amounted to the width of hundreds of fingers. Certainly this was astonishing. This was another exhibition of Kṛṣṇa’s inconceivable potency to His mother and His mother’s friends.
