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Read about Urvaśi at the Urday website. |
URVASI. [Source: Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology] A celestial nymph, mentioned first in the Rigveda.
The sight of her beauty is said to have caused the generation, in a peculiar way, of the sages Agastya and Vasishtha by Mitra and Varuna. A verse says, "And thou, O Vasishtha, art a son of Mitra and Varuna."
She roused the anger of these two deities and incurred their curse, through which she came to live upon the earth, and became the wife or mistress of Pururavas. The story of her amour with Pururavas is first told in the Satapatha Brahmana.
The loves of Pururavas, the Vikrama or hero, and of Urvasi, the nymph, are the subject of Kalidasa's drama called Vikramorvasi.
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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 |