Pāñcajana

Pāñcajana was a great asura who lived in the ocean. He was a sea-asura in the form of a conch-creature. He is best known as the one for whom Kṛṣṇa’s divine śaṅkha (conch), Pāñcajanya, is named. The tradition says that Kṛṣṇa killed him, and the great Pāñcajanya conch came from the meeting with him. Its sound alone could shake svarga and earth.

Pāñcajana is also linked with the waters near Prāgjyotiṣa, and with the gurukula of Sāndīpani.

The gurukula account

Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma finished their studies at the gurukula (the teacher’s school and home) of Sāndīpani Muni in Avantī. They asked their guru what gift, called gurudakṣiṇā (a student’s gift to his teacher), they should give him. Sāndīpani was moved by their devotion. He asked for something that seemed impossible: the return of his son, who had drowned in the ocean at Prabhāsa.

Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma went to the ocean, and Kṛṣṇa went down into its depths. There he found Pāñcajana, a great sea-asura in the form of a conch-creature. Pāñcajana had swallowed Sāndīpani’s son. Kṛṣṇa killed Pāñcajana, but the boy was not inside him. Kṛṣṇa then went to the realm of Yama and brought the boy back to his guru.

From this meeting Kṛṣṇa took the great conch Pāñcajanya. It is named after the asura.

Pāñcajana and the Narakāsura campaign

In the account of the defeat of Narakāsura, Pāñcajana, or his conch, appears again in connection with the waters around Prāgjyotiṣa. By then the Pāñcajanya śaṅkha was already with Kṛṣṇa. Its blast alone could frighten the armies of asuras. Its sound opened the Prāgjyotiṣa campaign and told all the worlds that Kṛṣṇa had come.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parva, dākṣiṇātya pāṭha, Chapter 38