Vamana Purana — Dietary Rules & Purification, Shloka 38
Dietary Rules, Purification (Śauca), and the Duties of the Householder and Forest-Dweller
यो नित्यकर्मणो हानिं कुर्यान्नैमित्तिकस्य च भुक्त्वान्नं तस्य शुद्ध्येत त्रिरात्रोपोषितो नरः
yo nityakarmaṇo hāniṃ kuryānnaimittikasya ca bhuktvānnaṃ tasya śuddhyeta trirātropoṣito naraḥ
If someone causes the omission of daily rites and also of occasional rites, then having eaten that person’s food, a man becomes purified by fasting for three nights.
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FAQs
Ritual discipline is presented as socially consequential: neglect of obligatory duties affects not only the doer but those who partake in his dependency-network (e.g., food). The remedy—three-night fasting—emphasizes self-restraint as a means to restore purity and mindfulness.
This is dharma/ācāra material (prāyaścitta and karma-niyama) embedded in a purāṇic chapter; it is not directly one of the five pancalakṣaṇa categories, though it can appear alongside vamśānucarita/manvantara narratives as prescriptive teaching.
“Three nights” can symbolize a complete cycle of restraint sufficient to reset conduct and intention. The linkage of purity to ‘food of the negligent’ symbolically frames nourishment as inseparable from the ethical order (ṛta/dharma).