Swelling is a bodily condition in which the body holds extra water and expands as a result.
Dropsy is depicted as the penalty meted out by the deity Varuna for telling lies in various hymns in the Vedas, the earliest Hindu holy literature.
Varuna was envisioned as the keeper of cosmic order (rta), and purposely misleading speech was seen as the model of anrta, the destructive energy opposing rta's organizing force.
The penalty was considered as suiting the offense in this instance, as if one had been figuratively inflated by the falsehoods made.
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