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In many scriptures and stories, sages and saits curse others when they get upset or someone does them wrong. In some cases this can be considered as an act of self-defense (even saits need to protect their material integrity), but in many it seems to be just abusing their mighty powers. One such example could be rishi Durvasa, who appears to get angry at the slightest pretext and shows very little mercy.

This seems very confusing to me, because I always felt the virtues of a sait are compassion, forgiveness and their goal is to relieve the human kind from suffering, not the opposite.

My hyphotesis is that by bringing a curse on a sinner, it acts as a penance and thus the person can get rid of his/her bad karma in this life. But this explains only some of the cases, in many others the action that provoked such a curse is just s tiny mistake, like in the case of king Nriga.

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    "Curse" from a knowledgeable person should be considered as a prophecy, which will come true in future. Whether it's spoken or not -- is immaterial. By speaking such words, such saints make the person aware of future happenings. A wise person would consider such prophecy as a guideline. Like how a same hammer with same force will break a glass easily, but will take long to break a stone. Similarly, an easily irritable sage like DurvAsa will curse easily, while a controlled person like lord RAma or lord Krishna would curse very rarely. It depends on sinner, where he/she is committing sin.
    – iammilind
    Jul 8, 2018 at 14:00
  • Various sages might have their different reasons so are u looking for a general reason?
    – Rickross
    Jul 9, 2018 at 5:20
  • Related: How does a boon or curse work?
    – Say No To Censorship
    Jul 11, 2018 at 19:22
  • @iammilind This is indeed a very intetersting point of view. Perhaps you could extend it into an answer. It seem to explain most of such situations, but still not all of them. Like the story of Durvasa's visit to the Pandavas, clearly Duryodhana is requesting Durvasa to visit them with the (hidden) purpose of harming them. Not being able to feed the rishi doesn't seem to be a sin possibly commited by the Pandavas, they just don't have anything to share, but still they'd be punished.
    – Petr
    Jul 16, 2018 at 16:21

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