English
That to tlie watery element tliey owed Tlieii- being. Myriads were they born, and all In vesture heavenly clad, and heavenly gems : Yet more divine their native semblance, rich With all the gifts of grace, of youth and beauty. A train innumerous followed ; yet thus fair, Kor god nor demon sought their wedded love : Thus Ea;j;hava ! they still remain — their charms The conmion treasui'e of the host of heaven." — {Rdmdijana) Wilson. In the Pura7^as various ga/ias or classes of tliem are mentioned with distinctive names. The Vayn Pura^ia enumerates fourteen, the Ilari-vansa seven classes. They are again distinguished as being rftu'ivX-a, 'divine,' oilaukika, 'worldly.' The former are said to be ten in number and the latter thirty-four, and these are the heavenly charmers who fascinated heroes, as Urvasi, and allured austere sages from their devotions and penances, as Menaka and Eambha. The Ka^i-khawf/a says " there are thirty-five millions of them, but only one thousand and sixty are the principal." Tlie Apsarases, then, are fairyhke beings, beautiful and volup- tuous. They are the wives or the mistresses of the Gandharvas, and are not prudish in the dispensation of their favours. Their amours on earth have been numerous, and they are the rew^ards in Indra's paradise held out to heroes who fall in battle. They have the power of changing their forms ; they are fond of dice, and give luck to whom they favour. In the Atharva-veda they are not so amiable ; they are supposed to produce madness (love's madness?), and so there are charms and incantations for use against them. There is a long and exliaustive article on the Apsarases in Goldstlicker's JDidlonary, from which much of the above has been adapted. As regards their origin he makes the following speculative observations: — "Originally these divinities seem to have been personifications of the vapours wliich are attracted by the sun and form into mist or clouds ; their character may be thus interpreted in the few hymns of tho it'ig-veda where mention is made of them. At a subsequent period . . . (their attributes expanding with those of their associates the Gandliarvas), they became divinities which repre- sent phenomena or objects both of a physical and ethical kind closely associated with that life " (the elementary life of heaven). AKAiVYAKA. 'Belonging to the forest.' Certain religious ARANYANI—ARJUNA. 21 and pliilosopliical writings which expound the mystical sense of the ceremonies, discuss the nature of God, &c. They are attached to the Brahma?? as, and intended for study in the forest by Brahmans who have retired from the distractions of the world. There are four of them extant : i. Brihad ; 2. Taittiriya; 3. Aitareya ; and 4, Kaushitaki AraTzyaka. The Ara??yakas are closely connected with the Upanishads, and the names are occasionally used interchangeably: thus the Brihad is called indifferently Bn'had Ara;?yaka or Brzhad Ara7^yaka Upani- shad ; it is attached to the ^S'atapatha Brahma?za. The Aitareya Upanishad is a part of the Aitareya Brahma?ia, and the Kaushi- taki AraTiyaka consists of three chapters, of which the third is the Kaushitaki Upanishad. " Traces of modern ideas (says Max Miiller) are not wanting in the Ara?zyakas, and the very fact that they are destined for a class of men who had retired from the world in order to give themselves up to the contemplation of the highest problems, shows an advanced and already declining and decaying society, not unlike the monastic age of the Christian world." " In one sense the Ara?iyakas are old, for they reflect the very dawn of thought ; in another they are modern, for they speak of that dawn with all the experience of a past day. There are passages in these works unequalled in any language for grandeur, boldness, and simplicity. These passages are the relics of a better age. But the generation which became the chronicler of those Titanic wars of thought was a small race ; they were dwarfs, measuring the footsteps of departed giants." ARANYA#I. In the itig-veda, the goddess of woods and forests. ARBUDA. ]\Iount Abu. Name of the people living in the vicinity of that mountain. ARBUDA. * A serpent.' !N"ame of an Asura slain by India. ARDHA-NARl. 'Half-woman.' A form in which ^S'iva is represented as half-male and half-female, typifying the male and female energies. There are several stories accounting for this form. It is called also Ardhanarisa and Parangada. ARISHJA. A Daitya, and son of Bali, who attacked K?'?sh?za in the form of a savage bull, and was slain by him. ARJUNA. ' Wliite.' The name of the third Pandu prince. All the five brothers were of divine paternity, and Arjuna's father was Indra, hence he is called Aindri. A brave warrior. 22 ARJUNA. liigli-minded, generous, upright, and handsome, the most pro- minent and the most amiable and interesting of the five hrothers. He Avas taught the use of arms by Dro7ia, and was his favourite pupil By his skill in arms he won Draupadi at her Swayam- vara. For an involuntary transgression he imposed upon him- self twelve years' exile from his family, and during that time he visited Parasu-rama, who gave liim instruction in the use of arms. He at this period formed a connection with Uliipi, a Naga princess, and by her had a son named Iravat. He also married Cliitrangada, the daughter of the king of :Ma?npura, by whom he had a son named Babhru-vahana. He visited K?-ish?2a at Dwaraka, and there he married Su-bhadra, the sister of Kr/shTia, {See Su-bhadra.) By her he had a son named Abhimau}-!!. Afterwards he obtained the bow Ga?zf/Iva from the god Agni, with which to fight against Indra, and he assisted Agni in burning the Khaw^ava forest. Wlien Yudhi-shifhira lost the kingdom by gambling, and the five brothers went into exile for thirteen years, Arjuna proceeded on a pilgrimage to the Himalayas to propitiate the gods, and to obtain from them celestial weapons for use in the contemplated war against the Kauravas. There he fought with iS'iva, who appeared in the guise of a Kirata or mountaineer ; but Arjuna, having found out the true character of his adversary, worshipped him, and ^Siva gave him the pasupata, one of his most powerful weapons. Indra, VaruTia, Yama, and Kuvera came to him, and also pre- sented him with their own peculiar w^eapons. Indra, his father, carried him in his car to his heaven and to his capital AmaravatI, where Arjuna spent some years in the practice of arms. Indra sent him against the Daityas of the sea, whom he vanquished, and then returned victorious to Indra, who " presented liim with a chain of gold and a diadem, and with a war-shell which sounded like thunder." In the thirteenth year of exile he entered the service of Raja Vira/a, disguised as a eunuch, and acted as music and dancing master, but in the end he took a leading part in defeating the king's enemies, the king of Trigarta und the Kaurava princes, many of whose leading warriors he van(iui.sh(,'d in single combat. Preparations for the great struggle with the Kauravas now began. Arjuna obtained the personal assistance of KnshTia, who acted as his charioteer, and, before the gTeat battle began, related to him the Bhagavad-gitiL On ARJUNA—ARUNA. 01 J tlie tenth day of the battle he mortally wounded Bhishma ; on the twelfth he defeated Susarman and his four brothers ; on the fourteenth he killed Jayadratha ; on the seventeenth, he was so stung by some reproaches of his brother, Yudhi-sh^hira, that he would have killed him had not Iv?ish?ia interposed. On the same day he fought with KarTza, who had made a vow to slay him. He was near being vanquished when an accident to KarTza's chariot gave Arjuna the opportunity of killing him. After the defeat of the Kauravas, Aswatthaman, son of Drowa, and two others, who were the sole survivors, made a night attack on the camp of the Pa/i-c/avas, and murdered their children. Arjuna pursued Aswatthaman, and made him give up the precious jewel which he wore upon his head as an amulet. "V\nien the horse intended for Yudhi-sh;!hira's Aswa-medha sac- rifice was let loose, Arjuna, with his army, followed it through many cities and countries, and fought with many Rajas. He entered the country of Trigarta, and had to fight his way through. He fought also against Yajradatta, who had a famous elephant, and against the Saindhavas. At the city of Mardpura he fought with his own son, Babhru-vahana, and was killed ; but he was restored to life by a Naga charm supplied by his wife UliipT.