evam sva-geha-damani

yasoda sandadhaty api

gopinam susmayantinam

smayanti vismitabhavat

 

Translation by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada: 

 

Thus mother Yasoda joined whatever ropes were available in the household, but still she failed in her attempt to bind Krsna. Mother Yasoda’s friends, the elderly gopis in the neighborhood, were smiling and enjoying the fun. Similarly, mother Yasoda, although laboring in that way, was also smiling. All of them were struck with wonder.

 

Purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada: 

 

Actually this incident was wonderful because Krsna 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 Yasoda and her gopi 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 Krsna’s inconceivable potency to His mother and His mother’s friends.