Encyclopedia for Epics of Ancient India

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Aparna

APARNA. [Source: Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology] According to the Harivansa, the eldest daughter of Himavat and Meni.

She and her two sisters, Ekaparna and Ekapatala, gave themselves up to austerity and practised extraordinary abstinence; but while her sisters lived, as their names denote, upon one leaf or on one patala (Bignonia) respectively, Aparna managed to subsist upon nothing, and even lived without a leaf (aparna).

This so distressed her mother that she cried out in deprecation, `Uma,' `Oh, don't.' Aparna thus became the beautiful Uma, the wife of Siva.

 


Modern Languages MLLL-4993. Indian Epics. Laura Gibbs, Ph.D. The textual material made available at this website is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You must give the original author credit. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. No claims are made regarding the status of images used at this website; if you own the copyright privileges to any of these images and believe your copyright privileges have been violated, please contact the webmaster. Page last updated: October 16, 2007 12:22 PM