Vamana Purana — Sukesha's Boon & Twelve Dharmas, Shloka 57
Sukesha’s Boon, the Twelve Dharmas of Beings, and the Cosmography of the Seven Dvipas with the Twenty-One Hells
संदंशो लोहपिण्डश्च करम्भसिकता तथा घोरा क्षारनदी चान्या तथान्यः कृमिभोजनः तथाष्टादशमी प्रोक्ता घोरा वैतरणी नदी
saṃdaṃśo lohapiṇḍaśca karambhasikatā tathā ghorā kṣāranadī cānyā tathānyaḥ kṛmibhojanaḥ tathāṣṭādaśamī proktā ghorā vaitaraṇī nadī
(There are also the hells called) Saṃdaṃśa and Lohapiṇḍa, and Karambhasikatā; another dreadful one is Kṣāranadī (the caustic river), and another is Kṛmibhojana. Thus the eighteenth is declared to be the terrible river Vaitaraṇī.
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FAQs
The passage teaches accountability beyond death: adharma shapes one’s post-mortem trajectory, urging ethical living (ahiṃsā, satya, self-control, generosity) as protection against suffering states.
It functions as purāṇic instruction on karma and its results (phala-śruti style teaching). While not one of the five strict lakṣaṇas, it supports the Purāṇa’s dharmic mandate that undergirds vaṃśānucarita and narrative episodes.
Vaitaraṇī symbolizes the liminal crossing after death: a ‘river’ of consequences separating embodied life from retributive experience. Rivers like Kṣāranadī encode the idea that the moral ‘toxicity’ one generates becomes the environment one must traverse.