Apsaras

Apsaras · ap-saras, “the ones who move in the waters”

The Apsaras are the divine women of svarga, famed for their beauty and for their mastery of dance and song. They dance in the court of Indra (Devendra) with the Gandharvas, and Indra sends them to break the tapas of ṛshis and kings whose power grows too great. The name is read as “one who moves in the waters”, and the Rāmāyaṇa and many Purāṇas tell that they rose from the ocean of milk at the churning. The Agni Purāṇa places their rising after the Kaustubha gem and before Lakshmī Devī, and counts them among the ten devayonis, the beings of divine origin. Other texts give them other births: from Kaśyapa Maharshi and his wife Muni in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and the Matsya Purāṇa, from Kaśyapa and Pradhā in the Mahābhārata, and as mind-born of Brahmā in the Nāṭyaśāstra.

The best known among them are Urvaśī, Menakā, Rambhā, Tilottamā and Ghṛtācī. The Vāmana Purāṇa shows them at every great gathering of the devas: they danced in the wedding procession of Bhagavān Śiva, at the abhisheka of Skanda and before Bhagavān Vishṇu in the Vāmana form in the house of Brahmā, and they welcomed the heroes who fell in battle facing the enemy. The Agni Purāṇa names seventeen of them in the mantras that call on them to protect a king at his abhisheka, shows them dwelling at Prayāga, riding in the chariot of Sūrya and sporting in Kubera‘s city Alakāpurī, and promises their company to the hero who falls in battle and to the giver of dāna (sacred giving).

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa gives several accounts of their coming. They took shape from Śrī Hari’s memory of the svaras beginning with shaḍja; Brahmā made them with the gandharvas from his form shining with beauty; Muni, a daughter of Daksha, bore the gaṇas of apsarās; they arose from Śrī Hari’s play; and they were born at the churning of the ocean. The gandharvas and apsarases are one of the eight kinds of the deva sarga. (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 1; Skandha 3, Chapters 10, 20; Skandha 6, Chapter 6; Skandha 8, Chapters 5, 8)

Each apsarā below has her own full page on this site. Below is a short account of each, with a link to her page.

Apsarās with their own pages

Urvaśī

Urvaśī is the most famous of the apsarās. The Vāmana Purāṇa tells of her birth at Badarikāśrama. When Nara and Nārāyaṇa, the sons of Dharma, performed fierce tapas there, Indra sent the apsarās led by Rambhā, with Manmatha and Vasanta, to break it. Nārāyaṇa Ṛshi, smiling, made on his thigh from a cluster of flowers the form of a woman beautiful in every limb and gave it life. He told them to take her and offer her to their Devendra, and they took Urvaśī to svarga.

Her union with King Purūravas of the Lunar line, told in the Ṛgveda (10.95), the Mahābhārata and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, links her to the beginning of the Paurava line. Per Agni Purāṇa, she chose Purūravas, the son of Budha, as her husband, lived with him for fifty-nine years and bore him eight sons, Āyu and the others.

In the Vana Parva of the Mahābhārata, Indra sent Citrasena to Urvaśī with word of Arjuna‘s qualities, and she came to Arjuna in Amarāvatī. Arjuna bowed to the ground and called her gurumātā, the ancestress of his line. Wounded by the refusal, she spoke a śāpa that he would live among women as a dancer, not fully male in bearing, for a year. Indra turned the śāpa into a vara: it became Arjuna’s disguise in the year of ajñātavāsa at King Virāṭa‘s court.

In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa she is the foremost of the apsarās, chosen from the women Nārāyaṇa showed to Manmatha and his company. She lived with Purūravas under three conditions, left him when the gandharvas’ lightning showed him naked, and bore him six sons, Āyu and the others. (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 9, Chapters 14–15; Skandha 11, Chapter 4)

Pūrvacitti

Pūrvacitti is the apsarā whom Brahmā sent to Mount Mandara, to Āgnīdhra, the son of Priyavrata, who was doing tapas because he longed for sons. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa tells this in Skandha 5, Chapter 2. When she came, the plain āśrama on the mountain became a place of beauty and divine fragrance, and Āgnīdhra praised her form in rich words.

She stayed with him for the time Brahmā had set and bore him nine sons, each the first king of one of the nine varshas (regions) of Jambū-dvīpa: Nābhi, Kiṃpurusha, Harivarsha, Ilāvṛta, Ramyaka, Hiraṇmaya, Kuru, Bhadrāśva and Ketumāla. Then she went back to the realm of Brahmā. Āgnīdhra thought of her all the time, and after his death he went to Pitṛloka.

Through Nābhi, who received Bhārata-varsha, came Ṛshabhadeva, an avatāra of Bhagavān Vishṇu, and through him Bharata Cakravartī, from whom Bhārata-varsha takes its name.

Pramlocā

Pramlocā is the mother of Mārishā, the daughter of the tapasvin Kaṇḍu muni. Agni Deva tells the account in the Agni Purāṇa as he gives the line of Daksha.

The ten Pracetases, after ten thousand years of tapas in the ocean, rose and began to burn the trees that covered the earth. King Soma came to them and gave them Mārishā, whom he had caused to be born to Kaṇḍu by Pramlocā, to be the wife who would increase their line. From Mārishā was born Daksha Prajāpati, who created the moving and unmoving beings and gave his daughters to Dharma, Kaśyapa, Soma and others. So through her daughter Pramlocā stands at the root of Daksha’s line.

The Agni Purāṇa also names her among the divine apsarās called on to protect a king at his abhisheka.

Pañcacūḍā

Pañcacūḍā, “she who wears five tufts”, is an apsarā of Indra‘s svarga. She is beautiful and accomplished, but in the Umā Saṃhitā of the Śiva Purāṇa (Chapter 24) she is known above all for her insight.

When Nārada visited Indra’s court, she spoke with him from her own experience: enjoyment makes desire stronger instead of quenching it, and the mind always reaches for more. Nārada explained that sense objects hold no ānanda (bliss) in themselves; only the ātmā is its source, and the mistake of seeking it in objects drives saṃsāra. When she asked about the path to moksha, he taught her Śiva-bhakti, which fulfils all desires and also takes one beyond them.

The Agni Purāṇa names her among the seventeen divine apsarās called on at a king’s abhisheka.

Ālambushā

Ālambushā is an apsarā of the Mahābhārata. In the Śalya Parva (Chapter 51), Indra sent her to disturb the tapas of the ṛshi Dadhīca on the bank of the Sarasvatī.

When Dadhīca saw her divine beauty, his seed was released without his will. He kept it in a leaf-cup, and the river Sarasvatī, out of devotion to him, carried the child in her womb. So Ālambushā’s visit became the cause of the birth of Sārasvata Ṛshi, who later kept the Vedic tradition alive through a twelve-year drought.

She is not the rākshasa Ālambusha of the Droṇa Parva, a different being with a like name.

Vapu

Vapu was one of the finest apsarās of Indra‘s court, whose account in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa (Chapter 1) joins svarga with the line of Garuḍa. In Nandana-vana, when Nārada asked that the apsarā who thought herself best in grace and beauty should prove it by drawing away Durvāsā Maharshi from his tapas, the others trembled, but Vapu, proud of having broken the tapas of many ṛshis, said she would go.

She sang near his āśrama in the Himālaya, and Durvāsā, seeing why she had come, spoke a śāpa: she would be born in the line of Garuḍa as a bird for sixteen years, bear four sons, and, struck by an arrow, return purified to svarga.

She was born as Tārkshī, daughter of the bird-king Kandharu and Madanikā, and married Droṇa, son of the brāhmaṇa Mandapāla. While with child she came to the battlefield of Kurukshetra, where an arrow from Arjuna‘s bow pierced her. Four eggs fell to the earth as if on cotton, and a bell cut from the neck of Bhagadatta‘s elephant Supratīka fell over them and shielded them, until the ṛshi Śamīka found them.

The Five Crocodile Apsarās

The five crocodile apsarās, Varcā, Saurabheyī, Sāmeyī, Budbuda and Latā, were companions of Kubera who lived in the divine Nandanakānana. Their account opens the Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa of the Skanda Purāṇa (Māheśvara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 1).

They went dancing and singing to a brāhmaṇa doing tapas alone in a forest, to disturb him for sport. His tapas did not waver, but for their lack of respect he spoke a śāpa: they would live as crocodiles in water for a hundred years. When they begged forgiveness he softened it: when a man lifts each of them out of the water, she will have her divine form again.

On Nārada‘s advice they settled in the five coastal tīrthas of the Kaumārikā region, Kumāreśa, Stambheśvara, Barkaraśvara, Mahākāla and Siddheśa, which became dangerous and lay empty. Arjuna, on his twelve-year tīrtha-yātrā, entered the water at Stambheśvara and lifted out Varcā, and then freed the other four in turn. Each bowed to him, blessed him with victory and went up to the world of the devas.

The Apsaras in the texts

Origins and Classes of the Apsaras

Origins and Classes of the Apsaras gathers what the texts say of the Apsaras as a class. The name is read as “one who moves in the waters”, or, by the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, as “apsu rasa”, the essence of the ocean. Six accounts of their origin are given: the churning of the ocean, the Manu tradition, Brahmā‘s making of them for the Nāṭyaveda, Kaśyapa and Muni in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Kaśyapa and Pradhā in the Mahābhārata, and the single births of Urvaśī and Tilottamā.

The ten Daivika Apsaras of Indra‘s court are told apart from the many Laukika Apsaras, and the Nāṭyaśāstra’s list of twenty-six is given. It sets out their roles, as dancers of Indra’s court, as those Indra sends to break tapas, as the welcomers of fallen heroes, and in the Atharvaveda as presiders over dice, and their bond with the Gandharvas, Tumburu with Rambhā and Menakā with Viśvāvasu.

It then gives them in the Vedas (Ṛgveda 10.95, the Atharvaveda, the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa and the Kaushītaki Upanishad), in the Mahābhārata (Menakā and Viśvāmitra, Tilottamā and Sunda-Upasunda, Urvaśī and Arjuna, Rambhā’s śāpa, Rambhā and Rāvaṇa), in the Rāmāyaṇa and in the Purāṇas, and ends with their beauty, youth, attire and skills.

Apsaras in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa

In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa the apsarās are called “the armies of Manmatha“, and Manmatha is the leader of their host. They tried to break the tapas of Nārāyaṇa at Badarikāśrama and were themselves broken; at Indra‘s bidding they danced before Mārkaṇḍeya and turned back, scorched by his tejas. (Skandha 2, Chapter 7; Skandha 11, Chapter 4; Skandha 12, Chapter 8)

They serve and praise Indra, worship Sūrya each month with different names and rites, live on Kailāsa at all times and frequent the caves of Trikūṭa. When Pṛthu milked the earth, the gandharvas and apsarās made Viśvāvasu the calf and milked sweetness of voice and beauty. Alambushā, the best of them, married Tṛṇabindu. (Skandha 4, Chapters 6, 18; Skandha 5, Chapter 21; Skandha 6, Chapter 7; Skandha 8, Chapter 2; Skandha 9, Chapter 2)

They dance and sing at the great events of the Bhāgavata: the birth of Kapila, Pṛthu’s coronation, Namuci‘s death, Vāmana’s birth, the birth of Śrī Kṛshṇa and his play in Vraja, and Parīkshit‘s end. When Vyāsa followed Śuka, the apsarās at the bathing place covered themselves before the clothed Vyāsa but not before the naked Śuka, for, they said, Vyāsa still saw woman and man and his son did not. Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that apsarases reached his state through satsaṅga alone, without study of the Vedas, vratas or tapas. (Skandha 1, Chapter 4; Skandha 3, Chapter 24; Skandha 4, Chapter 15; Skandha 8, Chapters 11, 18; Skandha 10, Chapters 3, 12, 16, 27, 33; Skandha 11, Chapter 12; Skandha 12, Chapter 6)

Apsaras in the Vāmana Purāṇa

The Apsaras in the Vāmana Purāṇa appear at almost every great event of the devas, with Rambhā at their head, whom the ṛshis name the best among women. It tells the birth of Urvaśī on the thigh of Nārāyaṇa Ṛshi at Badarikāśrama; how Indra sent Pūtanā to break the tapas of the seven sons of Kratudhvaja, from whose seed, swallowed by the crocodile Śaṅkhinī, the Maruts of the Svārocisha manvantara were born; and how Rambhā and the Apsaras bathed with Maṅkaṇa Muni, whose seed became the seven Marut-gaṇas.

The Apsaras welcomed the heroes who fell facing Andhaka, served Andhaka in Pātāla, and danced before Bali in svarga led by Tilottamā. They danced in the wedding procession of Bhagavān Śiva, at the abhisheka of Skanda, at the four weddings at Hāṭakeśvara and before Bhagavān Vāmana in the house of Brahmā. In the Vaibhrāja forest Saṃvaraṇa saw Tapatī at play among them.

It also gathers the passages that name them among all beings, at the fall of Sūrya, in the service of Kātyāyanī, in the belly of Bhagavān Śiva, on Mount Trikūṭa, in the virāṭ form and at Kurukshetra, and tells how Rambhā gained beauty and Menakā sweet speech by the Nakshatra Purusha vrata, and how Rambhā and Citrāṅgada installed two liṅgas at Kurukshetra.

Apsaras in the Agni Purāṇa

The Apsaras in the Agni Purāṇa are one of the ten devayonis; the word is feminine and always plural, and Urvaśī and the others are the veśyās of svarga. At the churning of the ocean of milk the divine Apsaras rose after the Kaustubha gem and before Lakshmī Devī. In the mūrti they are always beautiful, with eyes of pacca colour.

At the king’s abhisheka seventeen are called on by name, Anavadyā, Anukeśī, Menakā, Sahajanyā, Kratusthalā, Ghṛtācī, Viśvācī, Puñjikasthalā, Pramlocā, Urvaśī, Rambhā, Pañcacūḍā, Tilottamā, Citralekhā, Lakshmaṇā, Puṇḍarīkā and Vāruṇī, and in the graha-yajña they are among the beings who bathe the yajamāna. They dwell at Prayāga, ride in the chariot of Sūrya and sport in Kubera‘s Alakāpurī.

It ends with the puṇya that brings one to them: the gift of a dāsī to brāhmaṇas, of fire and firewood in the cold season, death in battle, and the Go-vrata or the japa of the Gomatī-vidyā, which lead to Goloka.

Sources

• Ṛgveda, 10.95
• Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapters 45–46; Śalya Parva, Chapter 51; Droṇa Parva
• Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 4; Skandha 2, Chapters 1, 7; Skandha 3, Chapters 10, 20, 24; Skandha 4, Chapters 6, 15, 18; Skandha 5, Chapters 2, 21; Skandha 6, Chapters 6–7; Skandha 8, Chapters 2, 5, 8, 11, 18; Skandha 9, Chapters 2, 14–15; Skandha 10, Chapters 3, 12, 16, 27, 33; Skandha 11, Chapters 4, 12; Skandha 12, Chapters 6, 8
• Śiva Purāṇa, Umā Saṃhitā, Chapter 24
• Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, Chapter 1
• Skanda Purāṇa, Māheśvara Khaṇḍa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 1
• Matsya Purāṇa; Rāmāyaṇa; Nāṭyaśāstra of Bharata Muni (origins of the Apsaras)
• Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 6–7, 9–10, 27, 31, 66
• Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 3, 18, 111, 120, 211, 219, 236, 274, 360