॥ ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय ॥
Monday, 21 November 2022 IV.28 - Puranjana's cycle of suffering, rebirth, near-death and emancipation.
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This strange, unpleasant story of Puranjana draws to a logical end through twists and turns. There is also a southern flavour to it!
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Sage Narada continues to narrate this sordid story of Puranjana to King Prachinabarhi.
Bhaya, the king of Yavanas, with Prajvaara and Jaraa (Kalakanya) and accompanied by his deadly soldiers, now ruthlessly attacked the city of Puranjanaehich was defended by only an old serpent standing guard.
Jaraa went and possessed the bodies of all men, making them enervated and forlorn, like Indian cricketers sucked dry by a ruthless schedule of incessant play.
विशीर्णां स्वपुरीं वीक्ष्य प्रतिकूलाननादृतान् । पुत्रान् पौत्रानुगामात्याञ्जायां च गतसौहृदाम् ॥
T: Poor Puranjana noticed that the city was going to pieces.His sons, grandsons, servants and ministers were all gradually opposing him, accusing him that he was the cause of their woes. Even his queen was cold and indifferent. Now Kalakanya possessed him too, rendering him an old impotent man.
Prajvaraa went and set fire to the city, reducing it to rubble. Many of Puranjana's people were consumed by the fire. Nobody could ever be more miserable than Puranjana, with his undying desires and his life falling apart all around him.
The one-man army of that old serpent was unable to protect the city, unable to fight, unable to withstand the fire. He was beaten and tortured by Bhaya and everyone else, as he tried to slither away from the city.
Puranjana was still not able to see the reality. “Alas, my wife is encumbered with so many children. When I pass from this body, how will she be able to maintain all this family? Alas, she will be greatly harassed by her responsibilities!" Puranjana recalled how his wife would wait upon him, and have her bath and food only after him, and would not mind even when he scolded her for such needless troubles. Sounds familiar to a family man?
"Oh, what will happen to my children, my wife, my people!? If I die, they will be like people shipwrecked!"
Puranjana gave up his body while remembering his wife. His Karma was such that he was reborn as a princess, Vaidarbhi, daughter of the king of Vidarbha, to continue the worldly journey.
Charming and well-mannered, Vaidarbhi was married to a great king from the south, Malayadhwaja of the Pandya country.
Malayadhwaja and Vaidharbhi got many sons and a daughter. The sons expanded the Dravida kingdom.
Sage Agastya himself came forward to marry the daughter, who was a great devotee of Bhagavan Sri Krishna.
Eventually, King Malayadhwaja retired to the forest to spend his last years in austerity and spiritual practices. Vaidarbhi dutifully followed him. They stayed at Kulachala surrounded by three rivers - Chandravasa, Tamraparni and Vatodaka.
Eating hardly anything, that too only roots and leaves, the king withered away physically but advanced spiritually to a state of seeing everything as equal, with no duality- cold and heat, happiness and distress, wind and rain, hunger and thirst, the pleasant and the unpleasant. He could see Brahman within himself.
वासुदेवे भगवति नान्यद्वेदोद्वहन् रतिम् - T: He had love only for Bhagavan Vasudeva, nothing else. Seeing Brahman everywhere, he became indifferent to this world.
परे ब्रह्मणि चात्मानं परं ब्रह्म तथात्मनि । वीक्षमाणो विहायेक्षामस्मादुपरराम ह ॥
T: Seeing Parabrahman as himself, and himself as Parabrahman, he saw nothing else.
Vaidarbhi treated her husband as God, having given up all material comforts, and served him.
One day, Malayadhwaja gave up his mortal coil in Samadhi. His body was seated stiffly in Padmasana, and Vaidarbhi thought he was alive and continued tending to him. Suddenly she realised his feet had gone cold. When it dawned on her that her dear husband was dead, and she was alone in the forest, she burst out in loud wailing.
Delirious, she lamented, " Oh the best of kings, please get up! Get up! Just see this world, with water on all sides barring any escape, and the land infested with rogues and so-called kings दस्युभ्य: क्षत्रबन्धुभ्यो बिभ्यतीं पातुमर्हसि. This world is very much afraid, and it is your duty to protect her!"
After some time, with difficulty, Vaidarbhi set up a makeshift pyre to cremate the dead body. As she was about to enter the fire herself, a Brahmin came there.
He stopped her and said, " Oh, lady, who are you? Who is this man lying dead? Don't you recognise me? I am your old friend, Avijnata! Remember how I was always with you, Puranjana? You left me and my wise counsel, in search of pleasure and prosperity. Can you now recall all the consequences of your pursuits? Your suffering as Puranjana and this birth as Vaidarbhi? "
"Puranjana, the truth is that we are the eternal souls -Hamsas (celestial swans) in Manasasarovar. This whole experience of the city of nine gates, the company of enticement and pleasure, the fall from attacks of Bhaya, Prajvaara and Jaraa, have been experienced by you to understand the impermanence of material existence. Indeed I am Ishwara, and you are the Jiva. You could not recognise me or understand me, and hence all this suffering. Once you wake up to your true Self, you will see that in essence, you are the same as me, the Eternal Spirit."
"In the material body, there is only delusion. It begins with the thought of "I am a man, I am a woman, I am a eunuch", and so on. The man craves pleasures in the outer world endlessly, and all his efforts are finally futile."
"Indeed, Ishwara and Jiva are the two swans that live together in the heart of man. When one swan is instructed by the other, he attains his enlightened position. This means he regains his original divinity, which was lost because of his material attraction."
Sage Narada now concludes.
बर्हिष्मन्नेतदध्यात्मं पारोक्ष्येण प्रदर्शितम् । यत्परोक्षप्रियो देवो भगवान् विश्वभावन: ॥
T: "My dear King Prachinabarhi, the Supreme Being, the cause of all causes, is celebrated to be knowable indirectly, by studying the existence around us deeply. That is why I have described the allegorical story of Puranjana to you so that you can draw the final wisdom needed by you from it. This instruction shows the path to Self-knowledge."
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॥ ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय ॥
