Shloka 11
The Fall of Purañjana and the Supersoul as the Eternal Friend
Purañjana-Upākhyāna Culmination
भयनाम्नोऽग्रजो भ्राता प्रज्वार: प्रत्युपस्थित: । ददाह तां पुरीं कृत्स्नां भ्रातु: प्रियचिकीर्षया ॥ ११ ॥
bhaya-nāmno ’grajo bhrātā prajvāraḥ pratyupasthitaḥ dadāha tāṁ purīṁ kṛtsnāṁ bhrātuḥ priya-cikīrṣayā
At that time the elder brother of Yavana-rāja, famed as Prajvāra, arrived. To please his younger brother, named Bhaya—fear itself—he set the entire city ablaze.
According to the Vedic system, a dead body is set on fire, but before death there is another fire, or fever, which is called prajvāra, or viṣṇu-jvāra. Medical science verifies that when one’s temperature is raised to 107 degrees, a man immediately dies. This prajvāra , or high fever, at the last stage of life places the living entity in the midst of a blazing fire.
FAQs
In this allegorical narration, Prajvāra represents a consuming burning—often understood as feverish distress or conflagration—that arises in material life and “burns” the embodied being’s city (the body and its situation).
The verse depicts how fear in material existence is followed by intensified suffering; to “serve” fear, the burning distress (Prajvāra) overtakes the entire city, symbolizing how anxiety leads to greater torment for the conditioned soul.
Unchecked fear can escalate into consuming mental and physical distress; cultivating steadiness through sādhana—hearing and chanting about the Lord—helps one rise above fear-driven reactions and their destructive consequences.