Tara (Bali's wife)

Tárá, Báli’s wife, is presented in the fall of Báli as a loving and perceptive counselor whose warning cannot prevent his death. Her embrace before the fight and her lament afterward frame the battle through intimate family grief, while Báli’s final words place their son Angad at the center of his concern.

Identity and Role

Tárá appears as Báli’s consort and Angad’s mother. The narrative gives her a brief but consequential role in the events surrounding Báli’s fall: she recognizes the danger he faces, urges him not to meet it, and then mourns him when her counsel has failed. Her presence connects the public contest between warriors to its private cost for those left behind.

Counsel Before the Battle

As Báli hastens toward the confrontation, Tárá flies to him and throws her loving arms around him. Trembling and bewildered, she warns him that his opponent is too strong. The account describes her counsel as given with burning sighs, making her appeal both an act of judgment and an expression of fear for her husband.

Báli remains unmoved by her prayers and proceeds. The contrast is stark: Tárá reads the danger and tries to interrupt the rush toward combat, while Báli refuses to let her warning alter his course. Her failure to persuade him establishes the emotional stakes before the battle’s outcome is known.

Grief and Family Loss

After Báli is struck down, his thoughts turn to those he leaves behind. He says that he grieves less for himself, Tárā, or his friends than for their dear son Angad. His words make the family consequences of his death explicit and single out their child as his deepest concern.

The following canto is titled “Tárā’s Lament.” She bends to the ground and winds her arms around her husband, returning in grief to the gesture of embrace that had marked her attempt to protect him. The repeated physical closeness gives her brief arc its shape: she first reaches for Báli to keep him from danger, then holds him after she can no longer save him.