Shloka 68
Adhyaya 8 — Harishchandra’s Trial: Truth, the Sale of Family, and Bondage to a Chandala
यां न वायुर्न चादित्यो नेन्दुर्न च पृथग्जनः ।
दृष्टवन्तः पुरा पत्नीं सेयं दासीत्वमागता ॥
yāṃ na vāyur na cādityo nendur na ca pṛthagjanaḥ |
dṛṣṭavantaḥ purā patnīṃ seyaṃ dāsītvam āgatā ||
കാറ്റും സൂര്യനും ചന്ദ്രനും—സാധാരണ ജനങ്ങളും പോലും—മുമ്പ് ഒരിക്കലും ഭാര്യയായി കണ്ടിട്ടില്ലാത്ത അവൾ തന്നെയാണ് ഇപ്പോൾ ദാസ്യാവസ്ഥയിൽ എത്തിച്ചേർന്നത്।
FAQs
The verse highlights the asuric tendency to reduce what is supremely free and revered into an object of possession. Ethically, it condemns coercion and arrogance: attempting to turn the inviolable into a ‘slave’ is a mark of adharma and a prelude to downfall.
This is not Sarga/Pratisarga/Vamsha/Manvantara/Vamshanucharita material in itself; it belongs to a sacred narrative (ākhyāna) embedded in the Purana. At most, it supports ‘vamśānucarita’ in the broad sense of exemplary episodes, but it is primarily Devi-upākhyāna (Goddess narrative) rather than pancalakṣaṇa genealogy or cosmology.
On a symbolic level, ‘Wind, Sun, Moon, and ordinary people’ stand for forces that illumine, move, and measure the world—yet even these cannot ‘possess’ the Supreme Shakti. The claim that she has ‘come to slavery’ reflects ignorance (avidyā): the finite ego imagines it can bind the Infinite; the ensuing conflict reveals Shakti’s unconditioned sovereignty.