The Story of Dama, Vyala and Kata
The demon king Shambara, who rules from a cave in Patala; the gods (led in counsel by Brahma); and the three demons he creates, Dama, Vyala and Kata.
Vasishtha tells Rama of Shambara, a demon king of Patala whose army the gods keep destroying whenever he leaves it unguarded. After losing successive commanders, Shambara conjures by illusion three terrible demons for its protection. They are pure automatons: without ego, memory, or impressions, moved only by a bare inner impulse, unaware of victory, defeat, life or death, so nothing can frighten or tempt them into weakness.
Named Dama, Vyala and Kata, they lead his forces into a war with the gods that drags on for years. Unable to defeat them by weapons, the gods go to Brahma, who tells them the three cannot be beaten by force but only by time and habit: repeated practice of battle will slowly breed in them a sense of doership and ego, and once ego appears, desire follows, and desire is what makes any being conquerable. The gods keep up the long war on this advice.
In time the three demons do develop a sense of 'I' and 'mine', begin to crave safety, wealth and pleasure, grow afraid of death, and lose their former fearlessness. Weakened by this new attachment, their army is routed and they are slain and scattered across the world. Their wives flee to the underworld; the three demons themselves, having failed to bow to Yama, are later cast into hell, and pass afterward through many low rebirths, ending as fish, still driven by the same clinging desire.
दामो व्यालः कटश्चेति नामभिः परिलाञ्छिताः । यथाप्राप्तैककर्तारश्चेतनामात्रधर्मिणः ॥ ३६ ॥
They were named Dama, Vyala, and Kata. Each of them simply did whatever single task came before him, with nothing but bare awareness as his nature.
उनके नाम दाम, व्याल और कट थे। हर एक बस वही एक काम करता था जो उसके सामने आ जाता, और उसका पूरा स्वभाव बस एक सीधी चेतना भर था।
यदा तेऽत्यज्ञपुरुषाः शम्बरेण विनिर्मिताः । वासनामाश्रयिष्यन्ति तदा यास्यन्ति जेयताम् ॥ ३८ ॥
When these utterly unaware beings, fashioned by Shambara, come to rely on inner craving, that is when they will become defeatable.
जब शम्बर द्वारा बनाए गए ये बिल्कुल अनजान प्राणी अंदरूनी वासना का सहारा लेने लगेंगे, तभी वे हराए जा सकेंगे।
तेषु द्रवत्सु भीतेषु सर्वतो दानवादिषु । दामव्यालकटाख्येषु विख्यातेषु सुरालये ॥ २२ ॥
On every side, the Danava demons were fleeing in fear, among them the famous ones named Dama, Vyala, and Kata, well known in the home of the gods.
हर तरफ दानव राक्षस डर के मारे भाग रहे थे, उनमें दाम, व्याल और कट नाम के मशहूर राक्षस भी थे, जो देवताओं के घर में जाने-माने थे।
Read it in full
The story runs through chapters 25–30 of Book 4. Each chapter has the Sanskrit in Devanagari and IAST beside a plain English and Hindi translation of every verse. The number under each chapter is its verse count.