Purañjana Upākhyāna

The Purañjana Upākhyāna is a long story that the ṛshi Nārada tells to King Prāchīnabarhishat. It is told in Chapters 25 to 29 of the Fourth Skanda of the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa. The hero is Purañjana, who stands for the jīva (the embodied ātmā), and his hidden friend Avijñāta, who stands for Īśvara.

The story shows how the jīva loses itself in the city of nine gates, which is the human body. It becomes bound to buddhi (the intellect), is worn down by time, old age and death, and has to be woken by the friend it had forgotten. At the end Nārada gives the meaning of the story and names the only way out of saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death): nishkāma (desireless) bhakti (loving devotion) to Vāsudeva.

Nārada’s teaching to Prāchīnabarhishat

Nārada came to the āśrama of Prāchīnabarhishat, an old king who had long been busy with kāmya-yajñas (yajñas done to gain wishes), in which great numbers of paśus (animals) were killed. Nārada saw that the king was still bound to karma (action and its fruit). He chose not to teach him in plain words. He chose the paroksha way (the indirect way) that Bhagavān Vishṇu loves, a story that hides the truth inside a narrative.

Before he began, Nārada told the king: “The animals you killed in your yajñas remember what you did, and they wait for your death. Now hear the ancient story of Purañjana. Understand it and you will understand yourself.”

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 25.

Part One: Purañjana finds the nine-gated city

In ancient times there was a king named Purañjana, which means “he who dwells in a city”. He had one friend of great importance, named Avijñāta, which means “the unknown one”. No being in the three worlds could fathom his name or his deeds. Avijñāta was always with Purañjana, yet Purañjana did not know him.

Purañjana wandered over the whole earth looking for a home that suited his taste. The earth was full of cities, but none pleased him. He was a being of many desires, and no place matched the many pleasures he wanted. Then, on the southern slope of Himavān, he found a city with nine gates.

The city was beautiful beyond words. It was ringed with ramparts, moats and watchtowers. Its palaces were built of gold, silver and iron. Its floors were set with indranīla (sapphire), sphaṭika (crystal), vaiḍūrya (cat’s-eye), muktā (pearl), marakata (emerald) and māṇikya (ruby). Roads, crossings, markets, pleasure-halls, assembly-grounds, rest-houses and coral pavilions lined its streets. Outside lay a garden of lovely trees and creepers around lakes of sārasa birds. The waters rang with bird-cries and the hum of bees, and cool mist from mountain streams kept the flowers damp and sweet-smelling.

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 25.

Purañjanī

While Purañjana stood in the garden, a young woman of rare beauty came towards him, unannounced and unhurried. Ten companions came with her, and each of them commanded a hundred handmaidens. A five-headed serpent walked in front of her as her guard.

She had a fine nose, even white teeth and lovely cheeks. Her ears were matched, and they shone with kuṇḍalas (ear-rings). Her skin was dark. She wore a green silk garment with a golden girdle, and her anklets rang as she walked, like a deva-nārī (a woman of the devas). Her round breasts showed that she had just reached the fullness of youth, and in her shyness she half-hid herself with the edge of her garment. From under her curved brows, her sidelong glance struck Purañjana like an arrow. He lost his calm and spoke to her with long praise, asking who she was and why she had come.

Purañjanī answered: “I do not know who I am. I do not know who built this city. These ten are my friends, these women are their followers, and the serpent guards me while I sleep. I have been looking for a husband. My good fortune has brought you here. Live with me in this city of nine gates for one hundred years and enjoy every pleasure. What other man could I choose? What woman, seeing your form and your mighty arms, would not give her heart to you?”

Purañjana was taken by her beauty and her words, and he answered with longing. He compared her to Lakshmī, to Pārvatī and to Sarasvatī, and asked whether she was looking for her husband among the devas. He called himself a warrior of great deeds. He asked her to light up the city as Lakshmī lights up Vaikuṇṭha. They made their promises in the garden and entered the city together. For a hundred years they were lost in each other, and the years passed like one moment.

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 25.

The nine gates and the people of the city

The city had nine gates: five facing east, one south, one north and two west. Their names, and the lands they opened on, were these.

• In the east, Khadyota and Āvirmukhī, two gates at the same spot, opened on Vibhrājita-deśa, the land of radiance. Through them Purañjana went with his friend Dyumān (he who has light) to see forms. These are the two eyes, which open on the world of sight.
• Also in the east, Nalinī and Nālinī, two gates at the same spot, opened on Saurabha-deśa, the land of sweet smells. Through them he went with Avadhūta (he who removes impurities) to take in smell. These are the two nostrils.
• In the east, the gate Mukhya (the main gate) opened on two lands: Bāhūdana-deśa, the land of plenty of food, and Āpaṇa-deśa, the market. Through it he went with Rasajña (the taster) and Vipaṇa (the trader). This is the mouth, with the tongue for taste and speech for dealings with the world.
• In the south, Pitṛhū (the gate of the ancestors) opened on Dakshiṇa-pañcāla-deśa, the southern land of the five fields of the senses. Through it he went with Śrutadhara (he who holds what is heard). Hearing the karma-kāṇḍa (the part of the Veda about rites) leads towards the world of the ancestors, the path of pitṛyāna.
• In the north, Devahū (the gate of the devas) opened on Uttara-pañcāla-deśa. Through it he also went with Śrutadhara. Hearing the jñāna-kāṇḍa (the part of the Veda about knowledge) leads towards the world of the devas, the path of devayāna.
• In the west, Āsurī (the western gate of the asuras) opened on Grāmaka-deśa, the village of the senses. Through it he went with Durmada (the drunk one). This is the jananāvayava, the organ of birth.
• In the west, Nirṛti (the gate of dissolution) opened on Vaiśasa-deśa, the land of violence. Through it he went with Lubdhaka (the greedy one). This is the visarjanāvayava, the organ of waste.

Two blind men also lived in the city: Nirvāk (the speechless one) and Peśaskṛta (the worker). Purañjana was master of many who could see, yet he walked guided by one of these blind men and worked through the other. They are the hands and feet, which act without the light of discernment.

Purañjana entered the inner chamber, the antaḥpura, which is the heart, together with Vishūcīna, the minister who moves in all directions. This is the manas (the mind). Through it Purañjana met joy, sorrow and confusion, according to whether sattva, rajas or tamas ruled.

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 25.

Lost in Purañjanī

Purañjana was wholly taken over by Purañjanī. When she drank, he drank. When she ate, he ate. When she sang, he sang. When she wept, he wept. When she laughed, he laughed. When she ran, he ran after her. When she lay down, he lay down, and when she sat, he sat beside her. He heard what she heard, saw what she saw, smelled what she smelled and touched what she touched. Like a tame monkey trained by its owner, he copied her in everything, with no will of his own. His true nature, which is asaṅga (unattached), nirvikāra (without change) and svayaṃprakāśa (self-shining), had slipped completely away from him.

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 25.

Part Two: The hunt

One day Purañjana was seized by the vyasana (bad habit) of hunting. He took his quiver that never ran empty, put on golden armour, mounted a chariot drawn by five swift horses and set out for the Pañcaprastha forest with eleven commanders. He left Purañjanī behind without a thought.

In the forest he killed without mercy: hares, wild boars, wild buffalo, rhinoceroses, black-striped deer, porcupines and other animals, even sacred creatures he had no right to touch. Scripture allows a king who craves meat to hunt only the animals that are lawful, only in forests and only as much as he needs. Purañjana went past every limit, driven only by the pleasure of killing. At last he was worn out by hunger and thirst. He stopped and went home, bathed, put on sweet-smelling garlands and ornaments, and then, with his mind newly lit by kāma (desire), went to look for Purañjanī.

She was not in her usual place. He asked the handmaidens and learned that she was lying on the bare floor of the inner chamber, face down, in a sullen rage he had not expected. He was confused, for he could not tell what had offended her. He knelt before her, touched her feet gently, took her on his lap and spoke to her with long praise: her beauty, her fine shape, her gracious half-smile, and the shyness that made her lovelier. He admitted that his craze for hunting had made him leave her, against all propriety. He said that Kāma’s arrows had now taken all his courage and left him helpless at her feet. Which loving woman, he asked, could stay unmoved when her husband came back so humbled? Purañjanī gave way, and their union began again.

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 26.

Part Three: Kāla-kanyā and the pact with Bhaya

Time passed. The couple had 1100 sons and 110 daughters, and from their line came a great family. Purañjana arranged proper marriages for all of them. His descendants filled Pañcāla-deśa. But as with everything in saṃsāra, having more did not bring clarity. It brought deeper entanglement. Purañjana’s love for his wife, children, grandchildren, house and wealth grew ever firmer. The swift passing of nights and days, which is the army of time, went unnoticed.

Meanwhile the Bhāgavata brings in another figure, Chandavega, the gandharva-rāja (king of the gandharvas), who is the speed of time. He had 360 gandharva soldiers, who are the days, and 360 gandharva women, who are the nights. They circled the city in pairs, and each pair took away one part of Purañjana’s allotted life before passing on to the next. The five-headed serpent Prajāgara (the ever-wakeful prāṇa-śakti, the power of the life-breath) guarded the city against these attackers. For a full hundred years the serpent fought alone. But Chandavega’s soldiers never tired, and the serpent slowly grew weak.

Kāla (Time) had a daughter named Jarā, which means old age. She roamed the three worlds looking for a husband, but everyone turned her away, for no being could bear to live with her. Once she found Pūru willing, and in return she gave him a vara (a boon) of kingship. She also tried to approach Nārada himself, knowing that he was in Brahmaloka. He was a naishṭhika brahmacārī (a lifelong celibate student), and he refused her at once. In fury she laid a śāpa (a curse) on him: “Since you refused me, you will never stay in one place.” Nārada accepted the śāpa and sent her to the yavana-rāja named Bhaya, the prince of Fear and Death.

Bhaya received her kindly and was not put off. He said: “The world is deceived by Īśvara’s māyā (power of illusion), and so it does not understand your nature and turns you away as unlucky. But come, be my sister. My companion Prajvāra (fever, disease) is my younger brother. The three of us will move through the world unseen. No being will be able to stop your work.” Jarā agreed, and their pact was made.

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 27.

Part Four: The fall of the city

Bhaya’s armies of diseases, griefs and troubles of the mind surrounded the nine-gated city on all sides and entered by every gate at once. Kāla-kanyā was the first to seize Purañjana. The moment her arms closed round him, all his old beauty and strength drained away. His mind was drained too, but it still craved the pleasures it could no longer fully enjoy. The gandharvas robbed him of his wealth. His sons, grandsons, ministers and servants slowly turned cold and at last hostile. Even Purañjanī’s love grew cool. Enemies laid waste Pañcāla-deśa. Purañjana saw it all happen and found no way out.

Then Prajvāra, the burning fever and brother of Bhaya, arrived and set the whole city on fire. The nine-gated city burned. Purañjana, with his family, suffered greatly together with all the people of the city. The five-headed serpent, which is prāṇa, had its limbs broken and its strength stolen by the gandharvas. It tried to flee but was blocked by the yavanas. It wept and could do nothing more.

The yavanas dragged Purañjana away as a herdsman drags cattle. He cried out: “What will become of my wife, who cannot eat without me, who cannot bathe without me, who was always frightened when I was angry? How will she manage when I am gone? What will my sons and daughters do, who have no one else in the world?” This grief, which should never have been his, filled him completely. He died with his mind wholly fixed on Purañjanī.

Because of this bhāvanā (this total absorption of mind in his wife at the moment of death), the jīva who had been Purañjana was born again as Vaidarbhī, the dark-eyed daughter of the king of Vidarbha.

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 28.

Part Five: Vaidarbhī and Malayadhvaja

Malayadhvaja, the brave king of Pāṇḍya-deśa in South India, defeated the king of Vidarbha in battle and won Vaidarbhī as his bride by his courage. They had one daughter, a pativratā (a devoted wife) of firm character. She later became the wife of Agastya Mahārshi and bore the line of Dṛḍhacyuta and Iḍmavāhu. After her they had seven sons, who became kings of the Draviḍa country. Their line was to rule through the whole manvantara and beyond.

When his time as ruler was over, Malayadhvaja shared the kingdom among his sons. He took Vaidarbhī and went to the Malaya mountain, the ancestral mountain of his line, for the great tapas (austerity) of moksha (liberation). Vaidarbhī was young and beautiful, yet she left home, sons and pleasures and followed him gladly, as the moon follows the night.

On the Malaya mountain, near the rivers Candravasā, Tāmraparṇī and Vaṭodaka, Malayadhvaja practised the eight-limbed yoga with great steadiness. He kept the yamas (satya, ahiṃsā, asteya, brahmacarya, aparigraha) and the niyamas (śauca, tapas, santosha, svādhyāya, Īśvara-praṇidhāna). Then came prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna and last samādhi. He sat as still as a boulder for a hundred divine years, with his mind on Vāsudeva alone. Śrī Hari Himself lit the lamp of pure ātma-jñāna (knowledge of the ātmā) in his heart. Parabrahma was seen in the ātmā, and the ātmā in Parabrahma. All movements of the mind dissolved, and Malayadhvaja, still seated in his āsana, left the body in perfect stillness.

Through all those years Vaidarbhī had served him in bark garments, with matted hair and a thin body, yet she glowed like a smokeless flame beside her husband’s fire. When Malayadhvaja died in samādhi, she did not know it at first, for he had been so still in life that the stillness of death looked the same. She went to serve his feet and felt no warmth. She drew back in horror and wept alone in the forest. Then, resolved to go with her husband, she began to build a funeral pyre.

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 28.

Part Six: Avijñāta reveals the truth

At that moment an unknown brāhmaṇa appeared. He was Vaidarbhī’s oldest friend, and he came as if from nowhere. He comforted her with gentle words and then asked: “Who are you? Whose are you? Who is this man you are mourning? Do you remember your old friend Avijñāta? I am that friend.”

He went on: “We two haṃsas (swans) lived together in Mānasa-sarovara. We wandered for a thousand years and found no lasting home. Then you were drawn by the pleasures of earthly life, left me and went looking for a dwelling. You found this nine-gated city built by a woman.”

He then opened the meaning of the story for her. “The five udyānas (gardens) are the five objects of the senses: sound, form, smell, taste and touch. The nine gates are the nine openings of the body, through which the jīva goes out into the world. The three prākāras (walls) are three elements: fire, water and earth. The six trade-partners at the main gate are the six senses. The five markets are the five karmendriyas (organs of action). The city was built from the five mahābhūtas (great elements). Into this structure the Paramātmā entered and forgot himself.”

“The beautiful woman who ruled this city was buddhi, your own intellect. Your tādātmya (identification) with buddhi gave rise to the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’. Through buddhi, caught in the three guṇas, you felt all the pleasures and pains of this saṃsāra.”

Then came the great revelation. “You are not Vaidarbhī. Malayadhvaja was not your husband. In a former birth Purañjanī shut you, the jīva, inside the body of nine gates. You were the master of that body. You were never Purañjanī’s husband. All this māyā was made by me. In your former birth you believed, ‘I am Purañjana, a man.’ In this birth you believe, ‘I am a chaste woman.’ Both are false. You are neither. We are two haṃsas, two birds. I am Paramātmā and you are jīvātmā. In the sight of the jñānī (one who knows), there has never been any difference between us, not even for a moment.”

“I am you. You are me. There is no separation. One Parabrahma appears as Īśvara in the collective upādhi (limiting form) and as jīva in the individual upādhi. The separation is only the appearance of māyā. It is not the truth.”

When she heard this, the haṃsa who had been Purañjana remembered its true nature and rejoiced.

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 28.

Part Seven: Nārada’s full explanation

Prāchīnabarhishat heard the narrative and said that he had not understood it. Nārada then gave the full adhyātmic key (the key to its meaning for the ātmā).

The main allegory

The nine gates explained

• East: two eyes, Khadyota and Āvirmukhī, the visible world (Vibhrājita).
• East: two nostrils, Nalinī and Nālinī, the world of smell (Saurabha).
• East: the mouth, Mukhya, taste (Bāhūdana) and speech (Āpaṇa).
• South: the right ear, Pitṛhū, the karma-kāṇḍa and the path of the ancestors (Dakshiṇa-pañcāla).
• North: the left ear, Devahū, the jñāna-kāṇḍa and the path of the devas (Uttara-pañcāla).
• West: the organ of birth, Āsurī, the world of bodily union (Grāmaka).
• West: the organ of waste, Nirṛti, the world of suffering (Vaiśasa).

The chariot

The body is the ratha (chariot). The five jñānendriyas are the horses. Dharma and adharma (puṇya and pāpa) are the two wheels. The prāṇa-vṛttis are the fittings of the axle. The yearly flow of kāla is the movement of the chariot. Manas is the bridle. Buddhi is the sārathi (charioteer). The heart is the seat on which the jīva, the rathika (the rider), sits. The śabdādis (the objects of the senses, beginning with sound) are the quiver. The seven dhātus (body tissues) are the seven layers of protection. The five karmendriyas are the five kinds of visible movement. The ten indriyas and manas make eleven. This is the jīva’s army, riding inside the vehicle and chasing the vishayas as if hunting a mirage.

The root of the trouble

The true svarūpa (own form) of the jīva is nirguṇa (beyond all qualities), asaṅga and svayaṃprakāśa. But when prāṇa, the indriyas and manas are laid over the ātmā, the sense of kartṛtva (being the doer) arises. The jīva then takes itself to be the body and the things that belong to the body. It does sāttvika, rājasa and tāmasa karmas and is born again according to them, in svarga, in human life, or among animals and birds. The three kinds of suffering, ādhyātmika, ādhibhautika and ādhidaivika, cannot be fully escaped by any remedy inside saṃsāra. Moving a load from one shoulder to the other does not put it down.

The only way to moksha

No karma can fully cancel another karma, because the very dream of being the doer runs through both the act and its fruit. The one way to dissolve it is bhakti-yoga to Vāsudeva, which is nishkāma, ekāgra (one-pointed) and śuddha (pure). It brings jñāna (knowledge) and vairāgya (freedom from desire), and through them the lasting end of saṃsāra.

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 29.

The lesson for Prāchīnabarhishat

Nārada ended by turning the story on Prāchīnabarhishat himself. Like Purañjana, the king had been lost in kāmya-karmas and yajña acts that killed countless paśus. The animals remembered. His wives and children, his wealth and his rites were all part of the nine-gated city of attachment. Nārada said: “Seek Vāsudeva. That alone will end what cannot otherwise be ended.”

Source: Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 29.

Sources

• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 25 (the setting, the city, Purañjanī, the nine gates, Purañjana’s absorption)
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 26 (the hunt)
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 27 (Chandavega, Jarā and Bhaya)
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 28 (the fall of the city, Vaidarbhī and Malayadhvaja, Avijñāta’s revelation)
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skanda, Chapter 29 (Nārada’s explanation and the lesson)