Shloka 49
Nārada Instructs Prācīnabarhiṣat: The Purañjana Narrative Begins
City of Nine Gates
मुख्या नाम पुरस्ताद् द्वास्तयापणबहूदनौ । विषयौ याति पुरराड्रसज्ञविपणान्वित: ॥ ४९ ॥
mukhyā nāma purastād dvās tayāpaṇa-bahūdanau viṣayau yāti pura-rāḍ rasajña-vipaṇānvitaḥ
The fifth gate on the eastern side was called Mukhyā, “the chief.” Through it King Purañjana, accompanied by his friends Rasajña and Vipaṇa, would go to the two places named Bahūdana and Āpaṇa.
The mouth is here described as the chief or the most important gate. The mouth is a very important entrance because one has two functions to conduct with the mouth. One function is eating, and the other is speaking. Our eating is done with the friend Rasajña, the tongue, which can taste so many different types of foods. The tongue is also used for speaking, and it can speak of either material sense enjoyment or Vedic knowledge. Of course, here material sense enjoyment is stressed. Therefore the word rasajña is used.
FAQs
It depicts how the embodied soul, like a king leaving a city gate, goes outward toward sense-objects through the “gates” of the body, pulled by taste and marketplace-like temptations.
Because the Purañjana narrative is an allegory: the city is the body, the gates are the senses, the markets are sense-fields, and the ‘merchant’ represents the impulse to bargain for pleasure—showing how consciousness becomes entangled.
Be alert to the “marketplaces” of distraction (media, cravings, consumerism), guard the “gates” (senses) with discipline, and redirect taste (rasa) toward devotion—hearing and chanting about Bhagavān.