Panchajanya: Meaning
पाञ्चजन्यPanchajanya is the sacred conch (shankha) of Vishnu, carried in his upper left hand. In the Bhagavata Purana Krishna wins it from the demon Panchajana, and in the Bhagavad Gita he blows it to open the Kurukshetra war. Its sound is linked with the primordial Om.
What does it symbolise?
Tradition hears the conch's sound as an echo of Om, the first sound from which creation unfolds, so blowing the shankha announces the presence of the divine and drives away what is inauspicious. Its spiral form, growing outward from a still centre, is read as the unfolding of the universe.
The Vishnu Purana (1.22) explains Vishnu's conch as one form of ahamkara, the principle of individual existence from which the elements arise. The name Panchajanya is also connected by commentators with pancha, five, and so with the five elements.
