Sri Vasista
O Rāma, thus with the dānavas being vanquished and ‘devas’ being pleased, Dāma, Kata and Vyāla were gripped with fear and grief.
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With all his armies killed and overwhelmed, Sambara burnt with rage and asked for the trio.
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Fearing Samabar’s rage Dāma, Vyāla and Kata left their abode and took flight to the netherworlds.
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There the soldiers of ‘yama’ were living by the side of Lake ‘Naraka’. They were as powerful as ‘yama’ himself.
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Those courageous soldiers of ‘yama’ gave refuge to the three returning warriors, who looked like very embodiment of sorrow. They offered they daughters too to them.
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Then the trio lived there with the girls for ten thousand years. In course of time they acquired vicious ‘vasanas’.
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They spent their time entertaining thoughts like, ‘this girl is mine; this is my territory’.
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Later ‘yama’ visited those regions to inquire into matters of administration of those regions.
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The trio could not recognise ‘yama’ and so failed to bow to him as due to a king.
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Then yama got them thrown into vast fires, flaming fiercely, with a simple glance of his eyes.
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Then the trio got burnt along with their friends and families, throwing up pitiable cries. They got burnt like dried leaves in a forest fire.
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Because of their cruel ‘vāsanas’, they were reborn as soldiers in a kirāta tribe.
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-18.Then they took birth as crows, then as eagles, then as parrots. After that they took birth as pigs in Trigarta land followed by birth as goats on mountains. Later they became insects in Magadha. Thus they wandered about in many lowly wombs (over the years). Now they are living as fish in a small pond in Kashmir. They are taking again and again in many lowly wombs and dying like waves in a sea. Gripped by the vāsanas, they are moving from body to body. Even today they are not at peace. Know, O Rama, the awesome power of vāsanas from the story of this trio.
