Vamana Purana — Jabali on the Banyan Tree, Shloka 54
Jabali Bound on the Banyan Tree and Nandayanti’s Appeal at Sri-Kantha on the Yamuna
न च पुत्रफलं नैव पतिना योगमेष्यसि उत्सृष्टमात्रे शापे तु ह्यपोवाह त्रयोदश अपकृष्टे नपरपतौ सापि मोहमुपागता
na ca putraphalaṃ naiva patinā yogameṣyasi utsṛṣṭamātre śāpe tu hyapovāha trayodaśa apakṛṣṭe naparapatau sāpi mohamupāgatā
You shall obtain no fruit in the form of a son, nor shall you attain union with your husband. But as soon as the curse was uttered, the king was carried away—thirteen yojanas—by the current of water; and when the lord of men had been drawn away, she too fell into delusion (moha).
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FAQs
In this narrative register, ‘yoga’ commonly means ‘joining/union.’ The curse denies reunion or conjugal association with the husband, not necessarily meditative yoga.
Vāmana Purāṇa frequently encodes geography through story: rivers, floods, and currents become agents that relocate persons and thereby establish or explain sacred locales and distances (here, a displacement of thirteen yojanas).
Purāṇic distances can be both: a narrative quantification that also maps sacred space. Even if not cartographically exact, it signals a definite relocation that later verses often anchor to a named tirtha or river-bank.