Having left the spiritual world, Puranjana, accompanied by his Unknown Friend, the Supersoul, wanders through the material world. He desires to find a suitable place to enjoy himself. In other words, he searches for a suitable kind of body to inhabit. He tries many kinds of bodies on many planets. Here we note that each species of life consists of a soul inhabiting a particular kind of body. In this respect, the Shrimad Bhagavatam account differs from that of Descartes, who held that only humans have souls. For Descartes, animals were simply automatons.
Eventually, Puranjana comes to a place called Nava Dvara Pura, the City of Nine Gates. He finds it quite attractive. The City of Nine Gates represents the human male body, with its nine openings—two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, mouth, anus, and the genital opening. As Puranjana wanders through the gardens of the city, he encounters an extremely beautiful woman. Puranjana is attracted to her, and she is attracted to him. She becomes his Queen.
Puranjana, as we have seen, represents the conscious self. The beautiful woman represents Buddhi, intelligence. Up to this point, for the sake of simplicity, I have referred to the subtle material body of the living entity as mind. But according to the Vedic philosophy, the subtle material body is actually made up of the subtle senses, mind, intelligence and false ego. According to the Shrimad Bhagavatam philosophy, intelligence is a subtle material energy with discriminatory capabilities like those manifested by artificial intelligence machines. The attraction between King Puranjana and the Queen is the root of embodied consciousness. The King, it should be noted, has distinct conscious selfhood, with nonmaterial sensory capability, but this capability becomes dormant when he begins his relationship with the Queen.
The Queen (the subtle material element called intelligence) allows Puranjana (the conscious self) to enjoy the City of Nine Gates (the gross physical body). Employing a computer analogy, we might say Puranjana represents the user, the City of Nine Gates represents the computer hardware, and the Queen represents the software that allows the user to interface with the hardware and use it for practical purposes.
The Queen is not, however, alone but is accompanied by eleven bodyguards and a serpent with five heads. The bodyguards comprise the mind and the ten subtle senses. The ten subtle senses are made up of five knowledge-acquiring senses and five working senses. The five knowledge-acquiring senses are the senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. The five working senses are those of walking, grasping, speaking, reproduction, and evacuation. All ten subtle senses are grouped around the mind. The ten subtle senses are considered servants of the mind. Each of these servants has hundreds of wives. The wives are desires for material experience, and the subtle senses act under their pressure. According to this system, the subtle senses are different from the physical sense organs. The subtle senses are part of the invisible subtle material covering of the soul, along with mind and intelligence. The physical organs of sensation (the eyes, nose, tongue, ears, skin, legs, arms, mouth, genitals, and anus) are part of the gross physical body that is visible to the eyes. The gross body and its physical organs are made up of five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and ether.
The distinction between subtle senses and physical sense organs is important, and offers consciousness researchers a valuable conceptual tool. Let us consider, for example, the problem of phantom limbs. Persons whose legs or arms have been amputated often report that they are able to distinctly feel the missing limb, and even experience quite distinct sensations, such as twinges of pain or itching. The City of Nine Gates allegory provides an explanation for this mysterious phenomenon. Let us take the case of someone whose arm has been amputated but who still feels the presence of the arm. The arm is one of the working senses. It is composed of two elements, the subtle grasping sense and the physical organ of the arm and hand. The process of amputation removes the physical organ through which the subtle sense operates. But the subtle sense itself remains, and therefore its presence may be mentally perceived.
Since the subtle sense is material, it may be able to act upon gross physical matter, without going through the related physical sense organ. This model may therefore explain some of the phenomena reported in connection with ghosts and apparitions, and in connection with mediums, particularly the mysterious movement of physical objects.This model may also explain how persons are able to experience sense data during near death experiences, during which the physical sense organs are incapacitated because of anesthesia or shock.
The subtle senses are compared to attendants of the Queen. They serve her by bringing information and by conducting activity. Together they comprise the array of material intelligence and sensory capabilities, all formed from subtle but nevertheless material energy. In combination, they manufacture a self picture, with which the King becomes entranced and falsely identifies. The body itself, the City of Nine Gates, is made of gross material energy, of the kind that can be manipulated by ordinary physics and chemistry. It is powered by five subtle airs, listed in the Ayur Veda, the Vedic medical science, as prana, apana, vyana, samana, and udana. In the Puranjana allegory the five airs, comprising the vital force, are represented by a five-headed serpent.
In the allegory, Puranjana asks about the identity and origin of the Queen and her attendants. The Queen replies, “O best of human beings, I do not know who has begotten me. I cannot speak to you perfectly about this. Nor do I know the names or the origins of the associates with me. O great hero, we only know that we are existing in this place. We do not know what will come after. Indeed, we are so foolish that we do not care to understand who has created this beautiful place for our residence. My dear gentleman, all these men and women with me are known as my friends, and the snake, who always remains awake, protects this city even during my sleeping hours. So much I know. I do not know anything beyond this. You have somehow or other come here. This is certainly a great fortune for me. I wish all auspicious things for you. You have a great desire to satisfy your senses, and all my friends and I shall try our best in all respects to fulfill your desires. I have just arranged this city of nine gates for you so that you can have all kinds of sense gratification. You may live here for one hundred years, and everything for your sense gratification will be supplied.”
The King’s questioning the Queen represents the self’s interrogation of material intelligence for the answers to ultimate questions. The answers provided by the Queen, as well as her fundamental attitude, reflect those of modern science, which prides itself on avoidance of certain metaphysical questions and the tentativeness of whatever answers it may provide to other questions. “I cannot speak to you perfectly about this. . . . We only know that we are existing in this place.” Essentially, the Queen provides a monist, materialist answer to the King’s questions about his situation.
The Shrimad Bhagavatam then provides a more detailed description of the nine gates of the city inhabited by the King and Queen. Seven of the gates are on the surface (the two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and mouth), and two of the gates are subterranean (the anus and genitals). Five of the gates face east.
The first two gates on the eastern side are called Khadyota (glowworm) and Avirmukhi (torchlight). In order to see, the King would exit these two gates, and go to the city called Vibhrajita (clear vision). On this journey he would be accompanied by his friend Dyuman (the sun, the ruler of the subtle visual sense).