Pañcacūḍā and Nārada

Pañcacūḍā is an apsarā (a dancer of the devas) in the court of Indra. The Umā Saṃhitā of the Śiva Purāṇa, in Chapter 24, gives a long dialogue between her and the devarshi Nārada. They speak about the pleasures of the senses and about desire. Pañcacūḍā speaks from her own life in svarga (heaven), and she says that even there enjoyment does not set a person free. The dialogue is told as the teaching of Sanatkumāra to Vyāsa.

The setting and the speakers

Nārada was travelling through the worlds of the devas when he met the apsarā Pañcacūḍā in Indra’s court. Her name means “she who wears five tufts or crests”. She is called one of the most beautiful and gifted of the apsarases.

Often in the Purāṇas a ṛshi falls in love with an apsarā. Here it is different. It is Pañcacūḍā who begins the talk, and she is the one who raises the question of why the pleasures of the senses can never be enough. (Śiva Purāṇa, Umā Saṃhitā, Chapter 24)

What Pañcacūḍā says

Pañcacūḍā’s chief point is that enjoying pleasure does not lessen desire. It makes desire grow. A fire becomes larger when it is fed with ghee (clarified butter). In the same way kāma-bhoga (the enjoyment of desires) feeds more desire and does not put it out. The pleasures of svarga have beauty, music, gandharvas and apsarases, yet they do not bring a person to rest. They bring a finer and finer craving.

She speaks from her own life. She lives in the world of divine pleasure and can have all that svarga gives. Still she finds that the mind always reaches for what it does not yet have. In the pleasures of the senses there is no place to rest. Each thing that is gained opens onto the next wish. The only true fulfilment is moksha (liberation), which is the end of the experience that makes desire.

What Nārada says

Nārada agrees with her and adds to what she said. He says the teaching of the Upanishads and of the Śaiva āgamas is the same: only the ātmā (the self) is the source of true ānanda (bliss). Outside things, called vishayas, do not hold bliss. They only give the ātmā a chance to feel its own bliss, and the ātmā then wrongly gives the credit to the outside thing. So a person thinks that more of the thing will give more bliss. This is how saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death) works.

The path to moksha

At the end of the dialogue Pañcacūḍā asks Nārada about the way to moksha. Nārada teaches her Śiva-bhakti (devotion to Bhagavān Śiva) as the highest upāya (means). It gives every enjoyment a person wants, because Bhagavān Śiva grants every wish to his devotees. It also leads to moksha, because Bhagavān Śiva alone gives liberation. (Śiva Purāṇa, Umā Saṃhitā, Chapter 24)

Where the dialogue stands in the Umā Saṃhitā

In the Umā Saṃhitā the dialogue of Pañcacūḍā and Nārada comes straight after the chapter on the birth of the jīva (the living being), which is Chapter 22. Then comes the chapter on the impurity of the body, which is Chapter 23. It comes straight before the Kāla-jñāna chapter on the signs of death, which is Chapter 25. The order is this: the jīva is born, lives in an impure body, enjoys pleasures that keep it bound, and meets death. This leads to vairāgya (detachment) and points to Śiva-bhakti as the way out. (Śiva Purāṇa, Umā Saṃhitā, Chapter 24)

Sources

• Śiva Purāṇa, Umā Saṃhitā, Chapter 24
• Śiva Purāṇa, Umā Saṃhitā, Chapters 22, 23 and 25 (the chapters next to it)