Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.77.36
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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puru-māyinaḥ
—
of the great magician
Compound: puru (much, great) + māyin (illusionist). Śālva is puru-māyī — the chief sorcerer. Bhāgavatam keeps reminding us that his entire power was illusion, even at the moment his head is removed.
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vajreṇa vṛtrasya
—
as with the thunderbolt of Vṛtra
Phrase: vajra (thunderbolt) + vṛtra (the asura). The classical simile from Ṛg-veda and Bhāgavatam Canto 6. Gauḍīyas read the cakra here as functionally analogous to the vajra — both are the deva-side's purest weapon against the asura-side's purest power.
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purandaraḥ
—
Indra
Compound: pura (city) + dāra (breaker). Indra as the breaker of demon-cities. Apt term here, where Bhagavān has just shattered Saubha — Kṛṣṇa is the puruṣottama-purandara, the supreme city-breaker.
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hā-hā iti
—
"alas, alas"
Onomatopoeic phrase, mirroring v. 16. The Bhāgavatam's narrative pivot: the cry that earlier issued from Kṛṣṇa's witnesses when His bow fell now issues from Śālva's witnesses at their leader's death. Same syllables, sides reversed.
The Lord cut off the head of the demon endowed with great illusions (puru-māyinaḥ) pulling the head in front of his troops. The Lord did this with the head’s crown and earrings intact, to show his skill. People shouted out of great amazement.
The Lord cut off the head of the demon though he was endowed with great illusions (puru-māyinaḥ). The earrings and crown were intact. This suggests the quickness and ease with which the Lord did this with a sharp blade. Thus the Lord is called hariḥ: he who takes away. The example is given to show that though he had a huge body, cutting his head off was easy. Hāhā indicates great astonishment.
Hari removes Śālva's head — earrings, crown, and all — just as Purandara cut off Vṛtra's head with his thunderbolt. The cycle closes precisely: a sky-flying demon, like Vṛtra, dispatched by the wheel of the Lord, as Indra once dispatched the great asura with his vajra.
The Bhāgavatam itself tells the long story of Vṛtra in Canto 6, chapters 7-13 — Vṛtra, a great asura, devotee of Saṅkarṣaṇa in his last birth, slain by Indra (Purandara) with the vajra crafted from Dadhīci's bones. Vṛtra dies speaking of bhakti, a Vaiṣṇava hero in the form of an asura.
Vyāsa's simile here is unsettling and exact: like Vṛtra, Śālva is sky-flying, weapon-wielding, and beheaded. But unlike Vṛtra, Śālva carries no bhakti in his final breath — only māyā in his crown. The same instrument shape, two very different deaths.
My note
Source: vedabase.io