Markandeya Purana — Adhyaya 8, Shloka 125
Adhyaya 8 — Harishchandra’s Trial: Truth, the Sale of Family, and Bondage to a Chandala
नानामेदोवसामज्जा लिप्तपाण्यङ्गुलिः श्वसन् ।
नानाशवोदनकृता हारतृप्तिपरायणः ॥
nānā-medo-vasā-majjā-lipta-pāṇy-aṅguliḥ śvasan / nānā-śavodana-kṛtā-hāra-tṛpti-parāyaṇaḥ
Breathing heavily, with the fingers of his hands smeared with various fats, grease, and marrow, he lived intent on satisfying hunger—feeding on rice prepared from many corpses (that is, food obtained in connection with the dead).
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FAQs
The Purāṇic style uses revulsion to teach restraint: when one abandons dharma, the mind can normalize what is ordinarily forbidden, even living from death and pollution. Hunger and compulsion become metaphors for uncontrolled desire.
Carita (exemplum) illustrating karmic consequence; ancillary to dharma-teaching rather than cosmological Sarga/Manvantara material.
‘Food from corpses’ can be read symbolically as consuming the results of dead actions—living on residues of past karma—until insight or expiation breaks the cycle.