Urvashi and Pururavas

In my last post, I have mentioned about the myth of Urvashi cursing Arjuna. Many have written back wanting to know about the myth of Urvashi and Pururavas, which actually led to the curse on Arjun. 

So here is the myth in brief.

Pururavas was the first of the Lunar Kings (Chandravanshi), and was the son of Budha and Ila. Budha was the son of Som (or Chandra, moon) and Tara (who was actually the wife of Sage Brihaspati!). Pururavas was a brave warrior and was many a times invited by Lord Indra to help them during battles with the asuras. After victory, he was also entertained by the apsaras, or nymphs of Indra’s court. When Urvashi, an apsara in Indra’s court would get bored of the heavens, she along with her friends would come down to earth and enjoy the difference there. She preferred the life of earth with its emotions and turmoil to the ever-happy life of heavens. While returning from one such trip to earth, during dawn, she was kidnapped by an asura. Around the same time Pururavas, was returning from one of his visits to Indra’s court. After a brief encounter, Pururavas, managed to save Urvashi from the clutches of the asura. During this brief meeting, the two fell in love. Urvashi was moved by the warmth of a man, which she had never experienced before. Pururavas, had never held an apsara as close as this, and fell madly in love, but was not sure of reciprocation, so went back to his court, absolutely love sick.

Urvashi too was longing for the manly Pururavas. During a drama where she was acting as Goddess Lakshmi, she took the name of Pururavas, as her lover, where she ought to have said ‘Purshottama’, a name of Vishnu. This annoyed Sage Bharata, who was directing the play and he cursed her, that since she was smitten by a mortal, she too would have to go and live with him as a mortal and beget his children, something unknown to apsaras. Urvashi was too unconcerned with the latter part of the curse and saw it as a blessing in disguise as she would get to live with her lover and that too on earth, which she found more interesting than the heaven.

Pururavas, on the other hand was not happy with his wife as she was not able to beget him any children. When Urvashi came to him, they decided to leave the palace and go and stay in the garden of Gandhmadan (meaning intoxicating fragrance!). However, Urvashi had set a few conditions of her staying with Pururavas. One, that the king would ensure the safety of two goats that were brought along with her, two, she would eat only ghee and the king would never force her to eat anything else, and third, that the king would never appear nude  in front of her, except when they were making love.

Pururavas and Urvashi started living together and years passed by. But Urvashi was too much of an apsara to be a mortal woman and soon started to get bored with her mortal life and longed to go back to the heavens. On the other side the gandharvas (the male counterparts of the apsaras and also the celestial musicians) in the heaven too were missing Urvashi. So they devised a plan to get her back. Late one night, the gandharvas, took away the goats. When the goats started bleating, Urvashi got worried and asked the king to immediately go and save them. Pururavas, who was wearing nothing at that hour, got up in a hurry, and just then, the ganharvas flashed some lightening, showing Pururavas, completely in the nude. This angered Urvashi so much that she decided to leave as her conditions were broken.

Urvashi leaving Pururavas - Painting by Raja Ravi Verma

Later, Pururavas found her in the region of Kurukshetra and asked her to stay back. Urvashi was then pregnant and asked Pururavas to come to the same place after one year and take their child. Pururavas, visited the same place after one year, and brought his son back with him, who was later crowned as the King.

This myth has been transformed into a romantic story by Kalidasa in his play by the name of ‘Vikramorvasiyam’, where there are many changes done to the above myth. A lot of hide and seek kind of events are there where Urvashi leaves and comes back again and again, in different versions of the myth, but the above is the most simplistic version of the same.

Many scholars have evaluated this myth in different ways. Scholars like D. D. Kosambi have written extensively on this myth, which has its origins in Rig Veda. Max Muller too during his translations of the Vedas has attempted to interpret the myth much more simplistically, which has been rejected by many as extremely childish. The most common interpretation of the myth, is that Pururavas represents the sun and Urvashi the morning mist, and just as the sun approaches and the mist vanishes, so does Urvashi vanish from the sight of Pururavas quite often. The romance has many versions of Urvashi leaving Pururavas frequently, as a part of the narrative. Also, Urvashi is compared with Usas, the goddess of dawn, who has been given a lot of importance in the Rig Veda. The authors of the epic Mahabharata have made a very judicious use of this ancient Vedic myth to enable Arjuna to achieve a realistic disguise which only goes on to add to the already beautiful narrative.

Finally, the noted Hindi poet, Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’ too has his version of this story titled ‘Urvashi”, where he depicts Urvashi as a woman who was extremely moody, seductive and suspicious. According to him, women like Urvashi are the kind of women, who are extremely desirable, but cannot be possessed. As the name goes, ‘ur’ means heart and ‘vash’ means to control, such women conquer and control a man’s heart.

No further comments, I guess!!

Conflict – Team Anna

A well desired effect has been the cause of much merry amongst a section of people whom we call politicians in India. The cause of the merry making is the effect of discord within Team Anna. Anna Hazare has been making statements denouncing Arvind Kejriwal’s steps to form a political outfit, much to the embarrassment of Kejriwal and his supporters. Media has been reporting every action of both

Has Anna lost the steam when provoked to come to the forefront and fight the elections? After all, to make a difference in a system, one has to be a part of the system, isn’t it?

Has Kejriwal developed political ambitions, now that he has seen crowds swell in the numerous agitations that he has been a part of and in some cases led by him? Is it his firm belief that he has to be a part of the system to make changes in the system or is it plain avarice for power, as mentioned by a few of his detractors?

Is there a conflict between the well known crusader Anna Hazare and the new face of the corruption movement, Arvind Kejriwal? In the conflict, who is at fault?

Let me tell you a small story from the epic Mahabharata.

During one of the exiles of the Pandavas, Arjun, set out all by himself. The main objective was to form alliances with different rulers for the future confrontation with his cousins, where he would need support. During once such visits, he visited the abode of Lord Indra (also his father) and enjoyed the joys of Amravati. Among all the apsara’s in Indra’s court, he kept staring at Urvashi which was observed by all including Urvashi, who seemed to be smitten by the good looks of Arjun. Later Urvashi, who could not control herself, came over to Arjun and expressed her desire to make love with him. Arjun looked shocked and expressed his inability to do so. He referred to her past relationship with Pururava, Arjun’s ancestor, by the virtue of which, Urvashi was his mother and that’s exactly why he was staring at her. (The myth of Urvashi and Pururava is another interesting myth, which we will discuss on some other day)

Urvashi was enraged and informed Arjun that this was outrageous and such norms did not apply to the gods, but Arjun could not agree with her proposal. This spurn by Arjun insulted Urvashi so much that she cursed him, that henceforth, Arjun would be incapable of making love to any woman, if not her. (Later, with the intervention of Lord Indra, the curse was reduced to being in this state for just a year, which Arjun used to his advantage during the last year of the thirteen year exile when the Pandavas had to live in a disguise.)

Here is an example of conflict, where both were right. According to Urvashi, she was not a mortal and such rules of mortals were not applicable to her and thus she found nothing wrong in the proposition which Arjun found indecent. Also, what was a case of momentary passion for Urvashi was an unthinkable incestuous relationship for Arjun. This shows that conflicts do not always take place only when one is right and the other is wrong. It can occur even when both are right, as in this case, though, one had to suffer.

In the case of Anna-Kejriwal conflict too, both seem to be right. Anna considers himself to be a crusader whose role is to bring issues out on the forefront and stir a movement, in what he feels is a civil society agitation. But Kejriwal feels that, times have changed and people have opined that to make changes in a system, one has to be in the system. Civil society agitations today are seen as mere opposition, wherein the opposition does not offer much in terms of an alternative solution. There is also the case of difference of opinion due to generation gap. Anna is a Gandhian who has lived all his life under the influence of the apostle of non-violence. Kejriwal is a product of modern India, who believes that good politics and good politicians (an oxymoron in the present times) is a must and all he is trying is to usher in a new era in a pathetically gloomy situation created by the present set of politicians who have formed a ‘coalition’ to loot the country, irrespective of political affiliations.

In such a scenario, just who is right is the not the issue, since both are. Difference of opinion needs to be respected in this case and both need to move on keeping in mind the greater good behind the cause, detractors notwithstanding! 

The above painting of Urvashi cursing Arjuna is courtesy Ramanarayanadatta Astri (Wikipedia)