Doraka-bandhana Mantra of Ananta

Doraka-bandhana Mantra of Ananta · doraka-bandhana mantra, “the mantra for tying the cord”

The doraka-bandhana mantra of Ananta is the one-verse mantra recited while tying the doraka, the fourteen-knotted cord of Bhagavān Ananta, on the hand in the Ananta Caturdaśī vrata. Śrī Kṛshṇa gives it to Yudhishṭhira in the Uttara Parva of the Bhavishya Purāṇa.

The setting

Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Yudhishṭhira of the Ananta Caturdaśī. Śīlā, daughter of Sumantu, was married to Kauṇḍinya Muni. As they went home by bullock cart they came at noon to a river bank, where Śīlā saw women worshipping Janārdana on the caturdaśī and asked them the vrata. They taught her: make naivedya of a prastha of cooked food, bathe at the river, and in a maṇḍala worship Bhagavān Vishṇu as Ananta with gandha, flowers, dhūpa and dīpa, listen to the kathā, give half the naivedya to a brāhmaṇa and keep half as prasāda, and place before Bhagavān Ananta a doraka, a cord with fourteen knots, anointed with kuṅkuma. The doraka is offered to him, and then a man ties it on the right hand and a woman on the left, with this mantra.

The mantra

अनन्तसंसारमहासमुद्रे भग्नान् समभ्युद्धर वासुदेव ।
अनन्तरूपे विनियोजितात्मा ह्यनन्तरूपाय नमो नमस्ते।

anantasaṃsāramahāsamudre bhagnān samabhyuddhara vāsudeva |
anantarūpe viniyojitātmā hyanantarūpāya namo namaste|

O Vāsudeva, I am sinking in the great ocean of endless saṃsāra; lift me out. Join me also to your Ananta form. O you of endless form, my salutations to you again and again.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 94

After tying the doraka the vratī eats the naivedya, meditates at the end on Anantadeva Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa of universal form, and goes home.

What follows

Śīlā kept the vrata, and by its power their home became full of wealth, grain and cattle. When Kauṇḍinya later broke the doraka on her hand, all their Lakshmī was lost, because Bhagavān Ananta had been dishonoured, until Kauṇḍinya sought Bhagavān Ananta in the forest and was given his darśana. One who keeps this vrata or hears this kathā merges in the form of Bhagavān Ananta.

Sources

• Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 94