Piṅgalā Vairāgya
Piṅgalā Vairāgya is the account of Piṅgalā, a courtesan of the city of Videha, who gave up āśā (hope and expectation) in one night and found peace. It is told in the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skanda, Chapter 8. Dattātreya told it to Yadu Mahārāja as the teaching of his seventeenth guru. Night after night Piṅgalā waited at her door for a rich patron who did not come. On one night she saw that expecting something from others was the root of her pain. She turned from the world to Bhagavān Vishṇu within her and sat in her inner room. Peace came to her for the first time.
Piṅgalā in Videha
In the city of Videha, the kingdom of the wise king Nimi, there lived a woman named Piṅgalā. She was known for her beauty and skilled in every art of her work. She had grown comfortable and rich in it, and her house was full of fine clothes and ornaments.
But her heart was not at peace. Beneath all her skill and calm there was a restless hunger. It was not only for wealth. It was for something that wealth kept promising and never gave. She had met rich men, powerful men and charming men, and every one of them had left her lonelier than before he came.
The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skanda, Chapter 8, gives this account.
The long night of waiting
On the night that changed her life, Piṅgalā dressed with great care. She put on her finest ornaments, used sweet scents, and arranged her hair with skill. As evening deepened she stood at her doorway and watched the road. A rich man was expected. She waited.
An hour passed. He did not come. She stepped back inside, set her dress right, and returned to the door. Still no one. She went in, arranged her ornaments again, and came out again. The road was empty again. Again she went in. Again she came out.
This went on for hours into the night. Each time she went in, a small hope died. Each time she came out, a new one was born. The hope itself was the trap, and she kept walking into it and out of it, unable to stop. Later she sang that this swing between hope and despair was what she had called her life.
The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skanda, Chapter 8, gives this account.
The turning point
Deep in the night she stood at her door once more and knew that no one was coming. Something in Piṅgalā opened. It was not despair. It was something clearer than despair. She saw:
“Every time I have felt peace, it was when I was not wanting. Every time I have felt pain, it was because I was wanting something from someone who was not here. The wanting itself is the wound.”
In that moment her whole life looked different to her. She had been selling her most private self, her body, her time and her youth, for payment. With every payment she had bought another night of waiting for the next. The deal never ended because the wanting never ended.
A deeper knowing then came to her. Bhagavān Vishṇu himself, the Paramātmā who lives in every heart, had always been there. He alone could fill the emptiness that she had tried to fill with patrons. And she had never once turned toward him.
The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skanda, Chapter 8, gives this account.
Piṅgalā’s song
Piṅgalā went inside, took off her finery and sat quietly. Then she sang. She did not sing for anyone. She sang from a place that had suddenly become still:
“Alas, how foolish I have been! I looked for pleasure from the beings of this world, who are themselves bound, themselves passing, themselves seeking. I ignored the one who is always within me, Bhagavān Vishṇu, the master of all jīvas, the unborn, the cause of all causes, who is nearer to me than I am to myself.”
“All this time I have been a beggar at the doors of men, when I was a queen in my own inner room. I decorated my body to draw patrons who could give me coins. But the ātmā is the source of everything: all beauty, all wealth, all fullness. I had the ocean inside me, and I was begging at the edge of small pools.”
Āśā hi paramaduḥkhaṃ, nairāśyaṃ paramaṃ sukham
This means: hope is the greatest sorrow, and the end of hope, the full giving up of expectation from the world, is the greatest happiness.
“From this night I will have only one beloved: Bhagavān Vishṇu himself, who never leaves, whose embrace is the very nature of the ātmā. I will no longer stand at my door and wait.”
The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skanda, Chapter 8, gives this account.
Dattātreya’s teaching
Dattātreya told this account to Yadu Mahārāja as the teaching of his seventeenth guru. He said:
“Piṅgalā was bound not by her work alone but by āśā, expectation, which is the common sickness of all life in saṃsāra. Every human being is Piṅgalā. Every human being stands at a door, waiting for something from the world that will make him whole. And the world, like Piṅgalā’s patron, never comes on time, or comes and goes, or comes and disappoints.”
“The moment āśā is cut, not pushed down but truly seen through, peace rises by itself. Piṅgalā did not practise tapas for years to find peace. She only saw the truth about āśā, and the truth set her free.”
The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skanda, Chapter 8, gives this account.
Sources
- Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skanda, Chapter 8