Saṃsāra

Saṃsāra · sam-sāra, “the round of birth and death”

Grammar: masculine noun, from sam (together) and the root sṛ (to flow, to move): “a flowing on, a going round”.

Meaning: the round of birth and death through which beings pass again and again, bound by karma; the worldly life of that round.

In the scriptures: when Bali lives in Sutala, he remembers Prahlāda, and Prahlāda comes to him. Bali asks what is hita (good), pathya (wholesome) and śreyaskara (leading to the highest good), how one may live in saṃsāra without being caught in its bonds, and what boat can carry men of small understanding across its ocean. Prahlāda answers that this saṃsāra is an ocean, beaten by the opposing winds of the dvandvas (the pairs): sukha and duḥkha, rāga and dvesha, good and bad. Its water is the fearsome vishaya-vāsanās (the deep longings for the objects of the senses). Men jump into it with no boat at all, carrying on their heads the load of feeding and protecting wife and children. There is one support alone, a boat, and that boat is Bhagavān Vishṇu (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 67).

In the same teaching Prahlāda speaks again and again of the “well of saṃsāra”. Those who take refuge in Vishṇu, who bears the śaṅkha, cakra, gadā and the bow Śārṅga, Garuḍadhvaja, the Lakshmīpati, do not fall into that well again. One who rises at dawn and remembers Madhusūdana does not fall into the mire of saṃsāra. Those free of rāga and dvesha who remember Nārāyaṇa cross the ocean of saṃsāra like rājahaṃsas (royal swans) (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 67).

When Vishṇu is to be born as Vāmana, the daityas lose their tejas, and Bali asks Prahlāda why. Prahlāda bows to the Ananta, the Īśvara who is the axe that cuts down the tree of saṃsāra, and tells Bali that the Devadeva has entered the womb of Aditi with his sixteenth kalā-aṃśa (portion). Bali reviles Hari. Prahlāda speaks of Kṛshṇa, who cuts the endless nooses of saṃsāra, pronounces a śāpa that Bali will lose his kingdom and fall, and ends: there is no boat other than Kṛshṇa to cross this ocean of saṃsāra (Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 8).

The Vāmana Purāṇa uses the word in these places as well:

  • The devas praise Kātyāyanī Devī as the one who exists in the form of saṃsāra (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 19).
  • Aditi praises Sūrya-Nārāyaṇa as the axe that cuts down the tree of saṃsāra (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 50).
  • Prahlāda tells Bali that Hari is the helping hand to those who have fallen into the well of saṃsāra (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 51).
  • Bali tells Śukra that the Devadeva himself, who removes the pāpas of saṃsāra, has come to ask (Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 10).
  • At the Kalaśa tīrtha, one who bathes and has darśana of Durgā Devī crosses the ocean of saṃsāra that is hard to cross (Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 15).
  • In the stotra to Bhagavān Śiva, one name is “who takes away the saṃsāra that is hard to cross” (Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 23).
  • At the Sthāṇu tīrtha, Brahmā tells Bhagavān Śiva that those who chant his name are not caught in saṃsāra (Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 28).

Related terms: Karma · Dvandva · Vāsanā · Pāpa · Naraka

Sources

  • Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 19, 50, 51, 67
  • Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapters 8, 10, 15, 23, 28