Vamana Purana — Karmic Causes of Narakas, Shloka 19
Karmic Causes of Narakas and the Irremediability of Ingratitude (Kṛtaghna-doṣa)
बद्धाङ्घ्रयस्ते विगडैर्लोहैर्वाह्निप्रतापितैः क्षिप्यन्ते रौरवे घोरे ह्याजानुपरिदाहिनः
baddhāṅghrayaste vigaḍairlohairvāhnipratāpitaiḥ kṣipyante raurave ghore hyājānuparidāhinaḥ
Their feet are bound with iron fetters heated in fire; they are hurled into the dreadful hell called Raurava, where they are scorched on all sides up to the knees.
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FAQs
Actions have inevitable consequences (karmaphala). The verse uses vivid punitive imagery to cultivate moral restraint and reinforce accountability—particularly that harmful or adharmic conduct leads to suffering proportionate to the deed.
This fits most closely under secondary creation/cosmological description (often grouped with sarga/pratisarga material in Purāṇic composition) and didactic dharma-kathana; it is not vamśānucarita but an ethical-cosmological excursus.
Heated iron fetters symbolize self-forged bondage: one’s own deeds become the ‘chains’ that drag the soul into painful states. The ‘up to the knees’ burning emphasizes inescapability and totalizing consequence rather than a literal anatomical focus.