Chapter Twenty-eight Puranjana Becomes a Woman in the Next Life
1. The great sage Narada continued: My dear King Pracinabarhisat, afterward, the King of the Yavanas, whose name is fear itself, as well as Prajvara, Kalakanya, and his soldiers, began to travel all over the world.
2. Once the dangerous soldiers attacked the city of Puranjana with great force. Although the city was full of paraphernalia for sense gratification, it was being protected by the old serpent.
3. Gradually Kalakanya, with the help of dangerous soldiers, attacked all the inhabitants of Puranjana’s city and thus rendered them useless for all purposes.
4. When Kalakanya, daughter of Time, attacked the body, the dangerous soldiers of the King of the Yavanas entered the city through different gates. They then began to give severe trouble to all the citizens.
5. When the city was thus endangered by the soldiers and Kalakanya, King Puranjana, being overly absorbed in affection for his family, was placed in difficulty by the attack of Yavana-raja and Kalakanya.
6. When King Puranjana was embraced by Kalakanya, he gradually lost all his beauty. Having been too much addicted to sex, he became very poor in intelligence and lost all his opulence. Being bereft of all possessions, he was conquered forcibly by the Gandharvas and the Yavanas.
7. King Puranjana then saw that everything in his town was scattered and that his sons, grandsons, servants and ministers were all gradually opposing him. He also noted that his wife was becoming cold and indifferent.
8. When King Puranjana saw that all his family members, relatives, followers, servants, secretaries and everyone else had turned against him, he certainly became very anxious. But he could not counteract the situation because he was thoroughly overwhelmed by Kalakanya.
9. The objects of enjoyment became stale by the influence of Kalakanya. Due to the continuance of his lusty desires, King Puranjana became very poor in everything. Thus he did not understand the aim of life. He was still very affectionate toward his wife and children, and he worried about maintaining them.
10. The city of King Puranjana was overcome by the Gandharva and Yavana soldiers, and although the King had no desire to leave the city, he was circumstantially forced to do so, for it was smashed by Kalakanya.
11. Under the circumstances, the elder brother of Yavana-raja, known as Prajvara, set fire to the city to please his younger brother, whose other name is fear itself.
12. When the city was set ablaze, all the citizens and servants of the King, as well as all family members, sons, grandsons, wives and other relatives, were within the fire. King Puranjana thus became very unhappy.
13. The city’s superintendent of police, the serpent, saw that the citizens were being attacked by Kalakanya, and he became very aggrieved to see his own residence set ablaze after being attacked by the Yavanas.
14. As a serpent living within the cavity of a tree wishes to leave when there is a forest fire, so the city’s police superintendent, the snake, wished to leave the city due to the fire’s severe heat.
15. The limbs of the serpent’s body were slackened by the Gandharvas and Yavana soldiers, who had thoroughly defeated his bodily strength. When he attempted to leave the body, he was checked by his enemies. Being thus baffled in his attempt, he began to cry loudly.
16. King Puranjana then began to think of his daughters, sons, grandsons, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, servants and other associates as well as his house, his household paraphernalia and his little accumulation of wealth.
17. King Puranjana was overly attached to his family and conceptions of “I” and “mine.” Because he was overly attracted to his wife, he was already quite poverty-stricken. At the time of separation, he became very sorry.
18. King Puranjana was anxiously thinking, “Alas, my wife is encumbered by so many children. When I pass from this body, how will she be able to maintain all these family members? Alas, she will be greatly harassed by thoughts of family maintenance.”
19. King Puranjana then began to think of his past dealings with his wife. He recalled that his wife would not take her dinner until he had finished his, that she would not take her bath until he had finished his, and that she was always very much attached to him, so much so that if he would sometimes become angry and chastise her, she would simply remain silent and tolerate his misbehavior.
20. King Puranjana continued thinking how, when he was in a state of bewilderment, his wife would give him good counsel and how she would become aggrieved when he was away from home. Although she was the mother of so many sons and heroes, the King still feared that she would not be able to maintain the responsibility of household affairs.
21. King Puranjana continued worrying: “After I pass from this world, how will my sons and daughters, who are now fully dependent on me, live and continue their lives? Their position will be similar to that of passengers aboard a ship wrecked in the midst of the ocean.”
22. Although King Puranjana should not have lamented over the fate of his wife and children, he nonetheless did so due to his miserly intelligence. In the meantime, Yavana-raja, whose name was fear itself, immediately drew near to arrest him.
23. When the Yavanas were taking King Puranjana away to their place, binding him like an animal, the King’s followers became greatly aggrieved. While they lamented, they were forced to go along with him.
24. The serpent, who had already been arrested by the soldiers of Yavana-raja and was out of the city, began to follow his master along with the others. As soon as they all left the city, it was immediately dismantled and smashed to dust.
25. When King Puranjana was being dragged with great force by the powerful Yavana, out of his gross ignorance he still could not remember his friend and well-wisher, the Supersoul.
26. That most unkind king, Puranjana, had killed many animals in various sacrifices. Now, taking advantage of this opportunity, all these animals began to pierce him with their horns. It was as though he were being cut to pieces by axes.
27. Due to his contaminated association with women, a living entity like King Puranjana eternally suffers all the pangs of material existence and remains in the dark region of material life, bereft of all remembrance for many, many years.
28. King Puranjana gave up his body while remembering his wife, and consequently in his next life he became a very beautiful and well-situated woman. He took his next birth as the daughter of King Vidarbha in the very house of the King.
29. It was fixed that Vaidarbhi, daughter of King Vidarbha, was to be married to a very powerful man, Malayadhvaja, an inhabitant of the Pandu country. After conquering other princes, he married the daughter of King Vidarbha.
30. King Malayadhvaja fathered one daughter, who had very black eyes. He also had seven sons, who later became rulers of that tract of land known as Dravida. Thus there were seven kings in that land.
31. My dear King Pracinabarhisat, the sons of Malayadhvaja gave birth to many thousands and thousands of sons, and all of these have been protecting the entire world up to the end of one Manu’s life-span and even afterward.
32. The great sage named Agastya married the first-born daughter of Malayadhvaja, the avowed devotee of Lord Krishna. From her one son was born, whose name was Drdhacyuta, and from him another son was born, whose name was Idhmavaha.
33. After this, the great saintly King Malayadhvaja divided his entire kingdom among his sons. Then, in order to worship Lord Krishna with full attention, he went to a solitary place known as Kulacala.
34. Just as the moonshine follows the moon at night, immediately after King Malayadhvaja departed for Kulacala, his devoted wife, whose eyes were very enchanting, followed him, giving up all homely happiness, despite family and children.
35-36. In the province of Kulacala, there were rivers named Candravasa, Tamraparni and Vatodaka. King Malayadhvaja used to go to those pious rivers regularly and take his bath there. Thus he purified himself externally and internally. He took his bath and ate bulbs, seeds, leaves, flowers, roots, fruits and grasses and drank water. In this way he underwent severe austerities. Eventually he became very skinny.
37. Through austerity, King Malayadhvaja in body and mind gradually became equal to the dualities of cold and heat, happiness and distress, wind and rain, hunger and thirst, the pleasant and the unpleasant. In this way he conquered all relativities.
38. By worshiping, executing austerities and following the regulative principles, King Malayadhvaja conquered his senses, his life and his consciousness. Thus he fixed everything on the central point of the Supreme Brahman [Krishna].
39. In this way he stayed immovable in one place for one hundred years by the calculations of the demigods. After this time, he developed pure devotional attraction for Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and remained fixed in that position.
40. King Malayadhvaja attained perfect knowledge by being able to distinguish the Supersoul from the individual soul. The individual soul is localized, whereas the Supersoul is all-pervasive. He became perfect in knowledge that the material body is not the soul but that the soul is the witness of the material body.
