Shloka 19

Origins of the Maruts — Across the Manvantaras

Devanagari script

ब्रह्मतेजोविहीनास्ता जाताः पत्न्यस्तपस्विताम् ततस्तु तत्यजुः सर्वे सदोषास्ताश्च पत्नयः

Transliteration

brahmatejovihīnāstā jātāḥ patnyastapasvitām tatastu tatyajuḥ sarve sadoṣāstāśca patnayaḥ

Translation

তপস্বীৰ পত্নীসকল ব্ৰহ্ম-তেজহীন হৈ পৰিল। সেয়ে সকলোৱে দোষযুক্ত (কলুষিত) হৈ পৰা সেই পত্নীসকলক পৰিত্যাগ কৰিলে।

Speakers

• Narrator (Purāṇic voice) continuing the Andhaka-cycle account (speaker not specified in the excerpt).

Key Themes

• Ascetic power (tapas) and its social-ritual consequences
• Brahma-tejas as a marker of purity/authority
• Ritual/moral taint and marital rupture in mythic narrative

Verse Rasa (Emotional Flavour)

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

FAQs

What does ‘brahma-tejas’ signify here—learning, caste, or spiritual power?

In Purāṇic idiom, brahma-tejas primarily denotes the luminous potency generated by tapas, vows, and ritual purity—an efficacy that protects, blesses, and authorizes. Its loss signals a collapse of that protective-spiritual status rather than mere scholarship.

Why are the wives called ‘sa-doṣāḥ’ (tainted)?

The term doṣa in such narratives often indicates a ritual/moral blemish that disrupts the ascetic household’s purity economy. The verse frames the wives as having lost the radiance associated with tapas, making them unfit—within the story’s value system—for the ascetics’ continued association.

Is this a dharma teaching or a plot device?

Both: it functions as narrative causality (setting up subsequent events, including extraordinary births/omens) and as a dharma-coded statement about the perceived fragility of purity and the social consequences attached to it in Purāṇic storytelling.