Vamana Purana — Portents at Bali's Sacrifice, Shloka 93

Portents at Bali’s Sacrifice and the Kośakāra’s Son: The Power of Past Karma

Devanagari script

ममासक्ता वंशगुल्मे दुर्मोक्षे प्राणनाशने तत्रासक्तस्य षड्रात्रान्ममाभूज्जीवितक्षयः

Transliteration

mamāsaktā vaṃśagulme durmokṣe prāṇanāśane tatrāsaktasya ṣaḍrātrānmamābhūjjīvitakṣayaḥ

Translation

“Clinging to me, it became stuck in a clump of bamboo—hard to escape from and life-destroying. Because of my attachment there, after six nights my life came to an end.”

Speakers

• Same first-person narrator continuing the account to a sage (mune implied from prior verse).

Key Themes

• Āsakti (attachment) as bondage
• Fatal entanglement (physical and moral metaphor)
• Karmic consequence
• Didactic exemplum within tīrtha discourse

Verse Rasa (Emotional Flavour)

{ "primaryRasa": "karuna", "secondaryRasa": "shanta", "rasaIntensity": 0, "emotionalArcPosition": "", "moodDescriptors": [] }

FAQs

How should ‘attachment’ (āsakti) be understood here—literal or moral?

Both layers are active. Literally, something/someone ‘clings’ and becomes trapped in a bamboo thicket; morally, āsakti is a standard Purāṇic term for binding attachment that leads to suffering. The verse fuses physical entanglement with ethical instruction.

Why specify ‘six nights’ (ṣaḍrātra)?

Counting nights is a common narrative device to mark prolonged distress and the slow approach of death. It also echoes vrata/observance time-units (rātra-counts) familiar to Purāṇic audiences, sharpening the sense of a completed, fated interval.

What is the function of the bamboo thicket (vaṃśa-gulma) in the story?

It is a concrete hazard—dense, difficult to exit (durmokṣa)—and a metaphor for saṃsāric entanglement. In a tīrtha-māhātmya setting, such peril often prepares for a subsequent turn: rescue, expiation, or the demonstration of a sacred place’s salvific power (though that turn is not contained in these three verses alone).