Gṛdhra
Gṛdhra · gṛdhra, “the vulture”
Grammar: masculine noun; the vulture.
Meaning: the vulture, an ordinary animal.
In the scriptures: In the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa the vulture appears in the teaching on the fruit of karma.
A śūdra who steals a brāhmaṇa’s wealth is born a vulture for thousands of crores of years, then a pig for a hundred births and a tiger for a hundred births (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 83). Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Nanda that one who eats at night on Ekādaśī is a vulture for a thousand crore years, and a pig and a tiger for a hundred births each; after that he is a diseased śūdra, purified by a hundred palas of gold. The same fruit is named for the Kumbhīpāka list (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 85).
Yama tells Sāvitrī that after Kumbhīpāka the pāpī is born a vulture for many crores of births, a pig for two hundred, a crow for seven and a serpent for seven; then he is a worm in filth for sixty thousand years, and then a śūdra with leprosy and consumption, poor, childless and wifeless (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 30).
In Kaṃsa‘s dream of ill omen he saw a donkey, a buffalo, a bull, a pig, a bear, a crow, a vulture, a kaṅka bird and a monkey (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 72).
Related terms: Karma-vipāka · Kumbhīpāka · Naraka
Sources
- Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 30; Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapters 72, 83, 85