Shloka 12
स मातामहदोषेण तेन मृत्योः सुतात्मजः निसर्गाद् एव मैत्रेय दुष्टभावो व्यजायत
sa mātāmahadoṣeṇa tena mṛtyoḥ sutātmajaḥ nisargād eva maitreya duṣṭabhāvo vyajāyata
O Maitreya, because of the fault inherited from his maternal grandfather, that son born in Mṛtyu’s line came forth from the very beginning with a wicked disposition.
Sage Parāśara
Speaker: Parasara
Topic: Causal explanation for Vena’s adharmic nature preceding his reign.
Teaching: Ethical
Quality: diagnostic; cautionary about lineage/saṃskāra and moral disposition
Concept: Adharmic tendencies may manifest from prior causes (doṣa/saṃskāra), hence rulers must be guided and restrained by dharma and sādhus.
Vedantic Theme: Dharma
Application: Cultivate wholesome saṃskāras through disciplined conduct, good counsel, and devotion; do not rationalize harmful impulses as ‘natural’.
Vishishtadvaita: Even when dispositions arise from prior conditioning, the jīva remains under the Lord’s governance and can be reoriented through sādhana and grace mediated by sādhus.
Key Kings: Vena, Mṛtyu
FAQs
This verse uses the idea of a maternal-grandfather’s doṣa to explain moral causality across generations—how tendencies can manifest “from birth itself” as part of the Purāṇic framework of karma and inherited dispositions.
Parāśara frames it as a consequence of prior causes—here, a specific ancestral defect—so the character of a descendant is narrated as the fruition of earlier moral conditions, not as a random event.
Even when Vishnu is not named in the verse, the Vishnu Purana’s genealogical histories operate under Vishnu’s supreme governance of ṛta/dharma—presenting moral order and karmic fruition as aspects of the universe sustained by the Supreme Reality.