|
 Chapter
28: Purañjana
Becomes
a
Woman
in
his
Next
Life
(1) Nârada
said:
'Oh
King
Prâcînabarhi,
all
the
forces
of
Bhaya,
the
representatives of death [who
are
alike the troubles of old age] roamed
this
earth
together with Prajvâra and Kâlakanyâ. (2) But when they one day full of wrath laid siege to the
city of Purañjana which was so full of sensual pleasure oh King, they discovered it
was protected by the old serpent.
(3) The daughter of Kâla then also participated in
the
violence to
take hold of Purañjana's city. Overwhelmed by her someone
immediately realizes how insignificant he is. (4) With her attack the Yavanas
from all
sides entered the gates and created severe trouble all over the city. (5) Purañjana, who as an all
too eager householder was overly attached to his family, was in the troubled city
thereupon plagued by all kinds of distress. (6) Embraced
by
the
Daughter
of
Time
he lost his beauty and because he in being
addicted to sensual pleasures was a
miser lacking in intelligence, he was by
the Gandharvas and Yavanas [the
meat-eaters] by force bereft of his opulence. (7) He saw his town fall apart in opposing
fractions, that his sons and grandsons, servants and
ministers were disrespectful and that his wife had become indifferent. (8) With Pañcâla
being infested with insurmountable enemies he grew very anxious, but
because he himself was seized by Kâlakanyâ he couldn't take
any counteraction. (9) In his emotional preference for his sons and wife he had
lost the real purpose of life and because of Kâlakanyâ everything the poor man had
lusted for in his life had become stale. (10)
The town that was overrun
by the Gandharvas and Yavanas and
was smashed by the Daughter of Time, the king against his will had to
abandon. (11) For
the sole purpose of pleasing his elder brother Bhaya [called
'the
fear'],
Prajvâra [being 'the fever']
present at the spot, set fire to the city. (12) When
the city with all
the citizens, servants and followers was ablaze Purañjana, the
head of the big family, along with his wife and
descendants had to suffer the heat.
(13) With the city being attacked by the Yavanas
and seized by
Kâlakanyâ
and the problems caused by Prajvâra, also the
guardian of the city [the snake] got very aggrieved. (14)
He couldn't protect the city [against the
fire] and had great difficulty trying to get out of
there. It was as if he had to escape from a hollow tree
that was thrown
into the flames. (15) With his physical strength
defeated by the Gandharvas and the hostile
Yavanas oh King, he frustrated had to cry aloud. (16) What fate now befell the daughters,
sons,
grandsons, daughters- and sons-in-law and associates, what would become
of the kingdom and the palace with all its wealth and goods?
(17) At his separation the
householder turned his attention to the 'I' and 'mine' of his
home and it thus
happened that he with a mind full of obnoxious thoughts had
a hard time concerning his wife. (18)
'When I have left for another
life, how must this woman exist being
bereft
of
a
husband and
lamenting with all
the children of the family around her? (19) I never ate when she
didn't
eat, I never missed a bath when she would bathe. She was always devoted
to me and fearfully kept silent when I was angry, however afraid
she was
when I reprimanded her. (20) She
gave
me good counsel when I was foolish and she was saddened and put
off when I was away. Will she, despite
of being the mother of such great heroes, be able to hold on to the
path of her household duties? (21) How
will my poor sons and daughters who have no one else to depend
on, live when I like a broken
boat in
the ocean have disappeared from
this world?'
(22) Thus out of his wretched
intelligence lamenting
what should
not be
lamented, the one determined to bring him down called Fear approached to arrest him. (23) Purañjana was restrained
like an animal by the Yavanas
taken to their abode, followed by the stream of his attendants who
deeply aggrieved
were lost in tears. (24) As
soon
as the serpent who had to give up the city was arrested and following
him had left, the city turned into dust. (25) Forcibly
dragged
by
the
mighty Yavana, Purañjana, covered by the
darkness of his ignorance, couldn't remember his friend and
well-wisher [the Supersoul within] who had been there from the
beginning. (26) All the animals of sacrifice
by him most unkind killed with axes and cut to pieces, very angrily
remembered that sinful activity of his. (27) For an endless number of
years he in the
beyond was
absorbed in darkness and, bereft of all intelligence, practically
endless had to experience the misery of an impure life of being
focussed on women. (28) Because he
[till the very end] had kept her in mind
he after his death became a well situated woman [a daughter] in the
house of the most powerful King Vidarbha [see also B.G. 8: 5]. (29) As the daughter of Vidarbha she [he] was
given in marriage as a prize
of valor
to Malayadhvaja ['as
firm as the Malaya hill'] who as the best of the learned [a
Pândya ruler] in the fight
had defeated many princes and was the conqueror of all other cities. (30) He begot a daughter in her with
dark eyes as also seven younger
mighty sons* who became the kings of the
seven
provinces of the south of India [Dravida]. (31) From each of
them oh King, millions and millions of descendants were born who
ruled
the world for the time of a manvantara and longer [see 3.11: 24]. (32) Âgastya
[the sage; 'he who was born from a pot'] married the first
daughter sworn to the Lord and from her was born a son called
Dridhacyuta ['the
infallible fortress'] who on his turn had the great sage
Idhmavâha ['he who carries the wood'] for his son.
(33) Having divided the entire world among his sons, the
pious king called Malayadhvaja went to Kulâcala in a desire to worship
Lord Krishna. (34) Giving up her
home, children and material happiness, the daughter of Vidarbha
with her enchanting eyes followed her lord of wisdom like the moonshine
accompanying the moon. (35-36) There he cleansed himself
daily both inside and outside with
the holy waters of
the
rivers
named
the
Candravasâ,
the
Tâmraparnî
and
the
Vathodakâ. Subsisting on bulbs, seeds, roots and fruits, flowers,
leaves, grasses and water, his body undergoing
the austerity gradually
grew thin. (37) Equipoised he thus conquered the dualities of cold and
heat, wind and rain, hunger and thirst, the pleasant and the unpleasant
and happiness and distress. (38) With vows [yama] and
by regulation [niyama] fixing himself in his spiritual [yoga]
realization he subdued his senses, life and consciousness and thus by
means of the science of his austerities were all his impurities burned [in
the fire of his devotion, compare 4.22:
24, 3.29: 17]. (39) Sitting as immovable at the
same place as if a hundred years of the demigods
[see 3.11: 12] passed,
he, steady in relation to
Vâsudeva, the Supreme Lord, knew nothing but that attraction. (40) Like in a dream he by
the
all-pervasive Supersoul could distinguish himself in perfect awareness:
as the self-aware witness certain in his [divine]
indifference ['the glad hero']. (41) Under the
direct prompting of the Supreme Lord, of the spiritual master
Hari [the so-called caitya guru or the guru from
within] oh King, he found the pure light of the spiritual knowledge
that
enlightens all perspectives [see also the six darshanas]. (42) He who thus saw
himself in the transcendental Absolute and the Absolute Self within
himself, with this before his mind's eye gave up his considerations and
withdrew himself [from life].
(43) Vaidarbhî,
the
daughter
of
Vidarbha,
who
served
her
husband Malayadhvaja
with love and devotion, accepted her
husband as her godhead, as the supreme knower of the principles, and gave up on her sense enjoyment. (44) In old rags, lean because of her vows
and with her hair matted, she radiated next to her husband as peaceful
as
the flame of a fire. (45) As she was
used to, the woman
continued serving him who sat there fixed in his sitting posture, until
she after he had passed away couldn't detect any sign of life anymore
from her beloved husband. (46) When she serving him no longer felt the warmth of his
feet, she became as anxious at heart as a doe separated from her
partner. (47) Lamenting for herself how
wretched it was to be
without a friend, she broken-hearted began to cry loudly, wetting
her breasts with her tears. (48) 'Get up,
please, get up!, oh wise King. This world situated in the middle of the
ocean
is so very afraid of rogues and rulers full of attachment, you ought
to protect her!' (49) Thus lamenting the innocent
woman in
that lonely place fell down at the feet of her husband with tears
running down her cheeks. (50) For her
husband's body she built a funeral pyre of wood and placing him on top
of
it she after igniting it, lamenting, focussed her mind to die [saha-marana]
together
with
him.
(51) Just before that took place a
friend of hers, a brahmin,
a very learned scholar, pacified her very nicely with mitigating words,
speaking
to her about her master as she was crying. (52) The brahmin said: 'Who are
you? To whom do
you belong and who is this man lying there over whom you are lamenting?
Don't you recognize Me as the friend whom you in the past have
consulted? (53) Oh friend, do
you
still remember how you, not familiar with the Supersoul, gave Me up
as your friend? You were at the time in a position of being attached to
desires for material pleasure. (54) You and I oh
great soul, are two swans, two friends who for thousands of years in
succession walked the same path of the spirit [of devotion] and then
got separated from their safe haven [that Mânasa lake of the pure
spirit]. (55) You who as
that
swan had left me oh friend, thereupon traveled the earth as someone
with
a material
consciousness. You then saw a city that was the love of some woman. (56) [In that abode you had] five
gardens, nine gates, one protector, three store rooms, six [mercantile]
families,
five market places and five material elements with one woman running
the place. (57) The gardens
are the five objects of the senses, the gates My friend are the nine
apertures of the senses, the three store rooms stand for fire, water and food and the
families are the five senses. (58) The five market
places represent the power of action [the five working senses] and the
five elements are the fundamental elements of the material world. Man
is an eternal controller of the forces, but having entered that city he
is out of touch with the [original] intelligence. (59) In that situation being
in contact with the outer splendor of the world you, in her company enjoying it,
then had to live without the remembrance of the inexhaustible source
[of your spiritual
existence]. And thus you attained a state that was full of sin, My
best one. (60) In fact you
are not Vidarbha's daughter, nor is this hero of yours [Malayadhvaja]
your well-wishing husband. Neither were you the husband of Purañjanî by whom you were captured in the body with
its nine gates. (61) In reality it is so
that you, by this deluding energy that I created, considered yourself a
man, a woman or a nonsexual being, but you forgot about the two of us
as [being united in the pure spirit of the] swans. (62) You and I are not different
[in quality]. Look at yourself, you are just like Me, My
friend. The imaginary distinction between the two of us is by the
advanced scholars not even in the smallest degree ever acknowledged. (63) The two of us do
not differ more from each other than the body that one sees of oneself
in a mirror or in the eyes of someone else differs from one's own
[compare 3.28: 40]. (64) An
individual soul who thus
like
a swan lives together in the heart is, being instructed by the
other swan, situated in self-realization, because he then regained the
memory that was lost in that [materialistic] separateness.'
(65) 'Oh Prâcînabarhi, I have imparted this
spiritual
instruction in figures of
speech, because the Supreme Lord our God, the Cause of All Causes,
loves to be mysterious.'
|
Site menu