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Srimad Bhagvata Mahapurana: Book 4: Chapter 28: Verses 16-30
Puranjana is reborn as a woman and attains liberation through the teaching of his friend, Avijnata
Puranjana (the master of his house), whose mind has been perverted by the thoughts of 'I' and 'mine' in respect of his (body and) house etc., felt (very) wretched when the hour of separation from his wife came, and (anxiously) thought of his daughters, sons and grandsons, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law and retainers, house, treasury and (other) belonging, whatever (still) remained his in name only. (He said to himself,) "When I am gone to the other world, how should this widowed mother of the,family eke out her existence, lamenting the lot of her children? (Entirely) depending on me, she would not take her food until I had been fed nor would she bathe until I had taken my bath. (Nay,) she would get awfully frightened when I was angry and would hold her tongue out of fear when scolded by me. She would admonish me when my judgement failed, and would grow emaciated through grief when I was away from home. (Now) will she be able to follow the way of the householders (when I am no longer with her), even though she is the mother of heroic sons? (Very likely she will not; rather she will try to follow me to the other world by ascending my pyre.) And how will these helpless sons and daughters, who have no one else to depend upon, survive when I am gone? On the other hand, they will perish like the inmates of a broken vessel in mid ocean." While Puranjana was sorrowing thus with a feeble mind, even though he should not have done so, there came up the lord of the Yavanas, Bhaya by name, bent upon seizing him. When he was being taken by the Yavanas to their own place, bound as a beast, his attendants (too) followed him, sorrowing in extreme perturbation. When the serpent (too), that had been held up (till now by the Yavanas) deserted the city and came up (to his master), the city was completely destroyed after him and reduced to the elements. (Even) while being forcibly dragged by the mighty Yavana, Puranjana failed to remember his old friend and companion (Avijnata), seized as he was with infatuation. The sacrificial animals that had been mercilessly slaughtered by him (now) chopped him with axes in anger, remembering that cruelty of his. Steeped in ignorance, to which there was no limit or end, and having lost his memory, he suffered (untold) agony (in hell) for numberless years, his mind being perverted through attachment to his wife. Mentally clinging to her alone (even at the last moment), he was then born as a most beautiful girl in the house of the (then) ruler of Vidarbha, a veritable lion among kings. Malayadhwaja, a ruler of the Pandya kingdom, who had conquered (all) his enemies' cities, married this princess of Vidarbha, who was offered as the prize of valour, after vanquishing all the other princes in battle. Through her Malayadhwaja begot a lovely daughter with dark eyes and seven younger sons, who became the seven rulers of the Dravida kingdom.
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