Vamana Purana — Portents at Bali's Sacrifice, Shloka 93

Portents at Bali’s Sacrifice and the Kośakāra’s Son: The Power of Past Karma

Devanagari script

ममासक्ता वंशगुल्मे दुर्मोक्षे प्राणनाशने तत्रासक्तस्य षड्रात्रान्ममाभूज्जीवितक्षयः

Transliteration

mamāsaktā vaṃśagulme durmokṣe prāṇanāśane tatrāsaktasya ṣaḍrātrānmamābhūjjīvitakṣayaḥ

Translation

मुझसे चिपकी हुई वह बाँस के झुरमुट में फँस गई—जिससे निकलना कठिन था और जो प्राणनाशक था। वहाँ आसक्त रहने के कारण, छह रातों के बाद मेरा जीवन क्षीण हो गया।

Speakers

• Same first-person narrator continuing the account to a sage (mune implied from prior verse).

Key Themes

• Āsakti (attachment) as bondage
• Fatal entanglement (physical and moral metaphor)
• Karmic consequence
• Didactic exemplum within tīrtha discourse

Verse Rasa (Emotional Flavour)

{ "primaryRasa": "karuna", "secondaryRasa": "shanta", "rasaIntensity": 0, "emotionalArcPosition": "", "moodDescriptors": [] }

FAQs

How should ‘attachment’ (āsakti) be understood here—literal or moral?

Both layers are active. Literally, something/someone ‘clings’ and becomes trapped in a bamboo thicket; morally, āsakti is a standard Purāṇic term for binding attachment that leads to suffering. The verse fuses physical entanglement with ethical instruction.

Why specify ‘six nights’ (ṣaḍrātra)?

Counting nights is a common narrative device to mark prolonged distress and the slow approach of death. It also echoes vrata/observance time-units (rātra-counts) familiar to Purāṇic audiences, sharpening the sense of a completed, fated interval.

What is the function of the bamboo thicket (vaṃśa-gulma) in the story?

It is a concrete hazard—dense, difficult to exit (durmokṣa)—and a metaphor for saṃsāric entanglement. In a tīrtha-māhātmya setting, such peril often prepares for a subsequent turn: rescue, expiation, or the demonstration of a sacred place’s salvific power (though that turn is not contained in these three verses alone).