Many purana stories are allegories of the soul caught in samsara and of its journey towards salvation. It is a struggle for the individual soul to extricate itself from the experiences that its deep attachment to the world of enjoyment engenders. The story of Puranjana, narrated by Narada to Prachina Bharhis in the Bhagavata Purana, makes one reflect on this predicament of the individual soul, pointed out Sri Kesava Dikshitar in a discourse. Puranjana finds a city structured with nine openings. He finds a beautiful damsel Puranjani who is in search of a good consort. She is attended by ten servants and each leads another hundred others. She is guarded by her attendants and a hooded serpent. Puranjana marries her and they live together in the city of nine gates. He leads a life of pleasure and then dies while thinking of the woman.
In his next birth he is born as a woman and marries Malayadhvaja, a Pandya king. She remains devoted to him and when he dies she decides to immolate herself. Then a Brahmin appears and enlightens her about the esoteric truth of the Supreme God who is the indweller and the only ally for the soul at all times. Unfortunately, the jivatma easily forgets this truth in its entanglement with the birth cycle. Puranjana is the jivatma and Puranjani is the buddhi which associates with the sense of I and Mine. The serpent with five hoods is the prana, and the eleven body guards are the karmendriyas and jnanendriyas and the mind. The soldiers are the countless thoughts.The soul is forced to quit the body when the attendants of Time, Kala, old age, life span, fever and fear, take over. The soul then takes another body according to its thoughts at the time of takeover by Time. The cycle can be broken only by selfless devotion to the Lord.