Puranjana: The Soul's Allegory

The city of nine gates

Narada narrates the allegorical tale of King Puranjana, representing the soul trapped in the body. The city of nine gates symbolizes the body with its senses. Through attachment to his queen (intelligence), Puranjana forgets his true identity, illustrating how souls become bound to material existence.

The Context: A King Lost in Ritual

King Prachinabarhi was a powerful monarch, devoted to Vedic rituals. He had performed so many animal sacrifices that the earth was carpeted with the sacred kusha grass pointing eastward, hence his name 'Prachina-barhi' (eastward kusha). Yet despite all his religiosity, he remained ignorant of the ultimate truth. He was attached to the fruits of karma, to the pleasures of existence, to the endless cycle of action and reaction.

Narada Muni, the wandering sage who appears whenever a soul is ready for higher knowledge, saw Prachinabarhi's condition. The king was spiritually mature enough to receive truth but caught in the web of ritualistic religion without understanding its deeper purpose. To awaken him, Narada did not lecture directly. Instead, he narrated one of the most sophisticated allegories in world literature, the story of King Puranjana.

'Listen carefully, O King,' Narada began, 'for this story is about you, about me, about every soul trapped in material existence. Understand its symbols, and you will understand the nature of your own bondage, and the path to liberation.'

The Wandering Soul

Once there was a king named Puranjana, which means 'one who enjoys the city' (pura = city; jana = one who animates). He had a dear friend named Avijnata, 'the unknown one.' Puranjana wandered the earth searching for a suitable place to enjoy. He examined many cities but found them all unsuitable, too few facilities, too many limitations, too imperfect for his desires.

This, Narada explained, represents the soul's search through countless births. The soul (jiva) has an eternal friend, the Supersoul (Paramatma), who accompanies him through all incarnations. But the soul, absorbed in seeking pleasure, forgets this companion. The soul examines body after body, animal bodies with too few sense organs, celestial bodies with duties that restrict enjoyment, human bodies of various qualities, searching for the perfect vehicle for experience.

The City of Nine Gates

Finally, Puranjana discovered a magnificent city with nine gates, located on the southern side of the Himalaya mountains. This city had everything: gardens, palaces, pleasure groves, and all facilities for enjoyment. It was guarded by a five-headed serpent, protected by walls and gates, and filled with inhabitants who served the city's welfare.

King Puranjana stands before the great honey-coloured nine-gated city on a plain south of the Himalayas.

The city, Narada revealed, is the human body:

The Nine Gates:

The Five-Headed Serpent: The five pranas (vital airs) that keep the body functioning, prana, apana, samana, udana, and vyana.

The City Wall: The skin, muscles, and bones that enclose the body.

The Gardens: The sense objects that the body enjoys.

The Beautiful Queen

Puranjana meets Queen Puranjani in the city

Within the city, Puranjana found a woman of extraordinary beauty. She was attended by ten servants (the five working senses and five knowledge-acquiring senses), led by a serpent companion (the mind). She wandered in the garden searching for a suitable husband.

Puranjana was immediately smitten. 'O beautiful one,' he declared, 'I do not know who you are, but I desire you as my wife. Your form enchants me, your movements entrance me. Without you, this city means nothing. Be my queen, and I shall dedicate my existence to your pleasure.'

The woman replied: 'I too do not know my origins or my purpose. I know only that I exist in this city, with these servants, performing these functions. If you wish to marry me, I accept, for I see you are well-suited to enjoy this city's pleasures. But know this: I control this city. Its gates open and close at my command. Its servants follow my directions. If you wish to rule here, you must follow where I lead.'

This woman, Puranjani (she who animates the city), represents buddhi, intelligence. The soul, entering the body, becomes enchanted by intelligence and identifies with it. The soul thinks: 'I am intelligent, I am rational, I am the one who decides.' But intelligence actually leads the soul into material entanglement through endless wanting, planning, and enjoying.

A Life of Enjoyment

Puranjana married Puranjani and lived in the nine-gated city for many years. Through her, he experienced all pleasures. When she ate, he felt satisfied. When she slept, he slumbered. When she was happy, he rejoiced. When she grieved, he sorrowed.

So complete was his identification that he forgot his own existence apart from her. The soul, identifying with the body-mind complex, thinks: 'I am hungry' when the body needs food, 'I am tired' when the body needs rest, 'I am happy' or 'I am sad' based on circumstances affecting the body. The soul forgets its own nature, eternal, conscious, blissful, and becomes a slave to the body's experiences.

Puranjana fathered 1,100 sons and 110 daughters through Puranjani. His sons represent the countless desires that emerge from identification with the body. His daughters represent the emotional attachments that bind the soul further. Each child produced more children, desires breed more desires, attachments create more attachments, until the soul is hopelessly entangled.

The Attack of Time

But nothing in material existence lasts. While Puranjana enjoyed his city, a great army approached. Its commander was Chandavega, 'fierce time,' and his soldiers were the 360 Gandharvas and 360 Gandharvis, representing the 360 days and 360 nights of the year. With them came Kala-kanya, 'the daughter of Time,' whose touch brings decay and disease. No one in the three worlds would accept her as a wife, for she represented old age.

Finding no willing husband, Kala-kanya approached the kingdom of Yavana (representing death itself). Bhaya (fear) and his brother Prajvara (fever) became her companions. Together with Chandavega's forces, they laid siege to Puranjana's city.

The five-headed serpent (the vital airs) fought valiantly, but day by day, the city weakened. The walls crumbled, the gates malfunctioned, the gardens withered. Puranjani, once beautiful, became aged and infirm. Puranjana, still identified with her, felt his own powers diminish.

This is the experience of aging, the body that once served every pleasure gradually fails. The eyes that brought beautiful forms now see dimly. The ears that heard music now strain to catch words. The mind that planned conquests now struggles to remember. The soul, identified with the body, experiences aging as its own deterioration.

The Fall of the City

Kala-kanya and Bhaya breach the nine-gated city

Finally, Bhaya (fear/death) breached the city. His soldiers seized Puranjana and dragged him from his beloved city. Puranjani wept, their children wailed, but nothing could stop the inevitable. The serpent guardian fled (the life force departing). The city crumbled (the body dying). Puranjana was carried away, still crying for his queen, still attached to what he could no longer possess.

Because his final thoughts were of his wife, because his attachment to the feminine was supreme at the moment of death, Puranjana was reborn as a woman. Specifically, he became Vaidarbhi, a princess of remarkable beauty who married King Malayadhvaja, a great devotee.

The Path to Awakening

As Vaidarbhi, the soul lived a virtuous life. Her husband was a sage-king who eventually renounced everything to practice yoga in the forest. Vaidarbhi served him faithfully until his death, whereupon she prepared to enter his funeral pyre, so deep was her identification with him.

At this moment, a Brahmana appeared. This was Avijnata, the forgotten friend who had accompanied Puranjana throughout all incarnations. He revealed the truth:

'Dear soul, you are not Vaidarbhi. You were not Puranjana. You are not this body, this gender, this history. You are eternal consciousness, temporarily dwelling in these cities of flesh. I am your true companion, the Supersoul who has never abandoned you, even when you forgot me completely.'

'You searched for pleasure in body after body, city after city. You married intelligence and became its slave. You thought the body's experiences were your own. But you are the witness, not the experiencer. You are the light that illuminates, not the objects illuminated. Wake up! Remember who you are!'

The Teaching Revealed

Narada concluded by explaining each symbol to King Prachinabarhi:

'O King,' Narada said, 'you perform sacrifice after sacrifice, but do you know who performs them? You enjoy pleasure after pleasure, but do you know who enjoys? This body will age, this city will fall, these attachments will be torn away. What then? Will you grasp at another body, another city, another set of attachments?'

'Or will you remember your true friend, the one who accompanies you through all births, waiting patiently for you to turn toward him? The purpose of human birth is not to perfect the enjoyment of this nine-gated city but to remember the eternal companion and return to your original nature.'

Prachinabarhi, awakened by this teaching, abandoned his attachment to ritualistic religion and took up the path of devotion. He realized that all his sacrifices, all his dharmic accomplishments, had been performed while identified with the body, and thus had only strengthened his bondage. True liberation comes not from religious activity but from the knowledge of who we really are.

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