Vamana Purana — Prahlada vs Nara-Narayana, Shloka 9
Prahlada’s Defeat by Nara-Narayana and Victory through Bhakti
रोमावलीच जघनाद् यान्ती स्तनतटं त्वियम् राजते भृङ्गमालेव पुलिनात् कमलाकरम्
romāvalīca jaghanād yāntī stanataṭaṃ tviyam rājate bhṛṅgamāleva pulināt kamalākaram
And this line of hair, rising from her hips up toward the slope of her breasts, shone like a garland of bees moving from a sandy bank toward a lotus-filled lake.
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FAQs
The simile demonstrates how sensory beauty is narrated through nature’s patterns (bees and lotuses). In Purāṇic settings, such imagery often serves to heighten rasa (aesthetic mood) while the larger discourse ultimately reorients attention toward dharma and sacred purpose.
It is not directly one of the pancalakṣaṇa categories; it is poetic description within an episode, best cataloged as narrative embellishment (kathā-aṅga) rather than cosmology or genealogy.
Bees drawn to lotuses is a conventional symbol of irresistible attraction. Here it symbolically maps the viewer’s gaze (or the described line’s upward course) onto a natural movement from ‘bank’ to ‘lotus-lake,’ intensifying the aesthetic focus without invoking a specific Hari-Hara or avatāra doctrine.