Garuda Purana — Preta Kalpa, Shloka 69

The Extent of Questions: Deathbed Rites, Kāla (Time), and Karma-Vipāka Rebirths

Devanagari script

मधुदंशः फलं गृध्रो गां गोधाग्निं बकस्तथा / स्याच्छ्वेतकुष्ठी स्त्रीवस्त्र ह्यरुची रसहारकः

Transliteration

madhudaṃśaḥ phalaṃ gṛdhro gāṃ godhāgniṃ bakastathā / syācchvetakuṣṭhī strīvastra hyarucī rasahārakaḥ

Translation

ပျားရည်ကို ခိုးသူသည် ကိုက်စူးတတ်သော ပိုးမွှားအဖြစ် ဖြစ်လာမည်။ သစ်သီးကို ခိုးသူသည် လင်းတဖြစ်လာမည်။ နွားကို ခိုးသူသည် ပုတ်သင်ညိုဖြစ်လာမည်။ မီးကို ခိုးသူသည် ဗက (ကြိုးကြာ) ဖြစ်လာမည်။ မိန်းမအဝတ်အစားကို ခိုးသူသည် အဖြူရောင် ကုဋ္ဌ (အဖြူလက်ပရိုစီ) ရောဂါခံရမည်။ အရသာနှင့် အာဟာရကို ခိုးယူ သို့မဟုတ် ဖယ်ရှားသူသည် အစာမစားချင်သော ရောဂါဖြင့် ဒုက္ခရောက်မည်။

Word by Word

• madhudaṃśaḥ: a honey-biter (bee/wasp)
• madhudaṃśaḥ: Karta (Subject)
• Type: Noun
• Root: madhu (प्रातिपदिक) + daṃśa (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा-एकवचन; षष्ठी-तत्पुरुषः (madhuno daṃśaḥ)

• phalam: fruit
• phalam: Karma/Upapada
• Type: Noun
• Root: phala (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: नपुंसकलिङ्ग, प्रथमा/द्वितीया-एकवचन

• gṛdhraḥ: a vulture
• gṛdhraḥ: Karta (Predicate-noun)
• Type: Noun
• Root: gṛdhra (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा-एकवचन

• gām: a cow
• gām: Karma (Object)
• Type: Noun
• Root: go (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: स्त्रीलिङ्ग, द्वितीया-एकवचन (Accusative Singular)

• godhā: an iguana/lizard
• godhā: Karma/Upapada
• Type: Noun
• Root: godhā (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: स्त्रीलिङ्ग, प्रथमा-एकवचन; समासपूर्वपद

• agnim: fire
• agnim: Karma (Object)
• Type: Noun
• Root: agni (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, द्वितीया-एकवचन (Accusative Singular)

• bakaḥ: a crane/heron
• bakaḥ: Karta (Predicate-noun)
• Type: Noun
• Root: baka (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा-एकवचन

• tathā: likewise/also
• tathā: Samuccaya/Adverbial
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: tathā (अव्यय)
• Form: अव्यय (adverb) समानार्थक/समुच्चयार्थे

• syāt: would be/become
• syāt: Kriyā (Copula)
• Type: Verb
• Root: √as (धातु)
• Form: विधिलिङ् (Optative), परस्मैपद, प्रथमपुरुष, एकवचन

• śveta-kuṣṭhī: one with white leprosy
• śveta-kuṣṭhī: Karta (Predicate-noun)
• Type: Noun
• Root: śveta (प्रातिपदिक) + kuṣṭhin (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा-एकवचन; कर्मधारयः (śvetaḥ kuṣṭhī)

• strī-vastram: a woman's garment
• strī-vastram: Karma (Object)
• Type: Noun
• Root: strī (प्रातिपदिक) + vastra (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: नपुंसकलिङ्ग, द्वितीया-एकवचन (Accusative Singular); षष्ठी-तत्पुरुषः (striyāḥ vastram)

• hi: indeed
• hi: Emphasis
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: hi (अव्यय)
• Form: निपात (emphatic/indeed)

• arucī: one without taste/appetite (dyspeptic)
• arucī: Karta (Predicate-noun)
• Type: Noun
• Root: arucin (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा-एकवचन; गुणवाचक-नाम

• rasa-hārakaḥ: stealer of taste/essence
• rasa-hārakaḥ: Karta (Predicate-noun)
• Type: Noun
• Root: rasa (प्रातिपदिक) + hāraka (प्रातिपदिक; √hṛ)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा-एकवचन; षष्ठी-तत्पुरुषः (rasasya hārakaḥ)

Speaker

Lord Vishnu (narrating to Garuda/Vinata-putra)

Pretakalpa Layer

Afterlife Stage: Pretayoni

Philosophical Teaching

Concept: Theft/deprivation yields specific karmaphala: honey→stinging insect; fruit→vulture; cow→lizard; fire→crane; women’s clothing→white leprosy; stealing taste/nourishment→loss of appetite.

Vedantic Theme: Karma manifests as both future embodiment and present bodily affliction; harm to others’ sustenance/comfort rebounds as deprivation in one’s own body.

Application: Protect others’ livelihood and dignity (especially women’s garments as honor/privacy); do not deprive others of food/joy; practice restitution and compassionate giving.

Verse Rasa

Primary Rasa: bhayanaka

Secondary Rasa: karuna

Cross References

Related Themes: Garuda Purana 2.2.67–68 (same karmaphala series)

Characters & Entities

• Vishnu
• Garuda

FAQs

What is the importance of theft-related karma in the Garuda Purana?

This verse teaches that specific acts of theft produce specific karmic fruits—rebirth in lower forms or painful disease—emphasizing that Yama’s moral law is precise and action-specific.

How does this verse explain the path of the soul after sinful actions?

By linking theft to degraded rebirth and illness, the verse frames sin (pāpa) as shaping the jīva’s post-death trajectory through suffering and unfavorable embodiment before further progress is possible.

Practical application of this wisdom today?

Practice strict honesty in possessions and essentials (food, resources, clothing, livelihood); avoid even “small” theft, and cultivate restitution and charity to reduce harm and strengthen dharma.