Varaha Purana 117.1: Adhyaya 117, Shloka 1
The Thirty-Two Offenses: Rules of Purity and Proper Conduct in Worship
Uttara Bhāga · Āhāra-vidhi & Aparādha (Dietary discipline and transgressions)
अथ द्वात्रिंशदपराधाः ॥ श्रीवराह उवाच ॥ शृणु भद्रे महाश्चर्यमाहारविधिनिश्चयम् ॥ आहारं चाप्यनाहारं तच्छृणुष्व वसुन्धरे ॥
atha dvātriṃśad-aparādhāḥ || śrīvarāha uvāca || śṛṇu bhadre mahāścaryam āhāravidhi-niścayam || āhāraṃ cāpy anāhāraṃ tac chṛṇuṣva vasundhare ||
atha dvAtriMshadaparAdhAH|| shrIvarAha uvAcha|| shRRiNu bhadre mahAshcharyamAhAravidhinishchayam || AhAraM chApyanAhAraM tachChRRiNuShva vasundhare
अब मैं तुम्हे बताता हूँ बत्तीस गुनाहों की। वराह बोले, सुन्नो, यह बात बहुत अजब है। मैं तुम्हे बताऊंगा कि खाना कैसे खाना चाहिए और क्या खाना चाहिए, क्या नहीं। वसुंधरा, ध्यान से सुन्नो।
Sandhi Notes
- dvātriṃśad-aparādhāḥ treated as numeral + noun
- śrīvarāha → śrī-varāhaḥ
- mahāścaryam → mahā-āścaryam
- āhāravidhi-niścayam as tatpuruṣa chain
- cāpy → ca + api
- tac chṛṇuṣva → tat + śṛṇuṣva (tacchṛṇuṣva)
Varāha
Curious
What is the decisive rule (niścaya) of proper diet and what counts as improper eating/non-eating, including the ‘thirty-two transgressions’?
Ethical-spiritual life requires discernment of proper intake and improper abstention; transgression is definable and avoidable through knowledge.
Adopt mindful dietary rules; learn enumerated faults and structure daily conduct accordingly.
Direct address to Earth as Vasundharā/Mādhavī; instructing her on āhāra-vidhi and transgressions.
Varāha as dharma-teacher frames eating as a regulated yajña-like discipline: āhāra becomes an offering that sustains yoga and cosmic order.
Implicit yajña framing (vidhi/niścaya) rather than explicit limb-mappings; the ‘rule of eating’ functions like a ritual injunction (vidhi) governing offering/intake.
Food-discipline as sādhana: regulation of prāṇa and mind through sattvic conduct, aligning embodied life with dharma (a practical Vedāntic ethic).
A codified teaching begins: identify and avoid the thirty-two dietary/behavioral transgressions by knowing proper āhāra and improper anāhāra.
Observance supports purity and dharmic steadiness; violations accrue pāpa and ritual/ethical impurity requiring correction.
Varāha Purāṇa 117 (section introducing 32 aparādhas and āhāra-vidhi)
FAQs
It introduces a structured ethical catalogue (aparādha-list) tied to food discipline, showing how Purāṇic literature systematizes everyday conduct into normative frameworks.
No specific location is named; Vasundharā is the personified Earth, a cosmological interlocutor rather than a place.
Ethical life includes disciplined eating practices; the text frames diet and abstention as areas where transgressions can occur.
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