Urvasi and Pururavas

Author: Traditional Vedic

Time Period: 999 BCE–1 BCE

Country or Culture: India

Genre: Legend

Overview

The story of Urvasi (Urvashi) and Pururavas is found in multiple texts from almost every major period of recorded Indian history. In its themes of divine-human romance, sacred duty, and love in separation, the tale reveals much about the early Hindu culture that produced it. Variations of the story that exist in the ancient Rig Veda and the medieval Bhagavata Purana highlight evolving ideas on men, women, love, and spirituality within Hindu traditions. The version that will be examined first in this analysis is from the great Sanskrit war epic, the Mahabharata, with comparison to earlier and later versions from the Rig Veda and the Bhagavata Purana, respectively.

On its most basic level, the story of Urvasi and Pururavas portrays a theme common in Hindu mythology, that of romantic love between a mortal and an immortal. The human king Pururavas and the apsara (female nymph) Urvasi fall madly in love but are then separated, each pining for the other, not knowing whether their feelings are reciprocated. Urvasi lives in the heavenly court of Indra, the god of war and storms, where she is chief and most beautiful of the seductive apsaras, while Pururavas rules his kingdom on earth. Love in separation and its complement, love in union, are two important themes of the story, themes that have special resonance in the Hindu religious movement of bhakti (devotional love).

Urvashi was a woman in a man’s world and in keeping with the tradition of the times expected the man to make the first move. Pururava on the other hand feared rejection because he did not expect the pride of heaven to come and live with a mortal . . . So both pined for each other.

“Story of Urvashi and Pururava”

Within the Hindu cosmology, gods and divine beings of all classes are omnipresent in human affairs, and humans can in turn gain access to heaven through alignment with dharma (sacred duty). Dharma is the law by which cosmic and social order are maintained. Before meeting Urvasi, Pururavas was often invited to Indra’s court as a guest. In the Hindu worldview, his favor with the gods is a sign that Pururavas successfully fulfills his dharma as a Kshatriya, a member of the caste of warriors and rulers. The importance of following the dharma proper to one’s social position is a central theme in the Mahabharata as a whole, and it also features prominently in the Urvasi-Pururavas story.

The Urvasi-Pururavas tale occurs within the Mahabharata as one of countless side stories that expand and at times echo the text’s central narrative, which tells of the epic war waged in ancient prehistory by the Pandavas and the Kauravas, rival cousins of the royal Bharata family (maha means “great” and Bharata means “Indian”). Scholars generally agree that the Mahabharata originated as an oral tradition that was compiled and augmented by numerous contributors between 500 BCE and 500 CE. It is the longest single poem in the world, about seven times the length of the Greek Odyssey and Iliad combined. Side stories, discourses on dharma, and all manner of received wisdom punctuate and expand the Mahabharata’s main story line. It is often called an encyclopedic work, since it would appear the Mahabharata’s compilers sought to include in it everything of worth that their culture had to offer.

The most direct relevance of Urvasi and Pururavas’s romance to the story of the Bharata war is that Arjuna, chief warrior of the Pandava clan and a major protagonist of the epic, is a distant descendent of the pair. The lineages of major, and even minor, characters are consistently documented in the Mahabharata; to this day in traditional Hindu society, family ancestry is highly valued knowledge. In contrast to the West, the general thrust of Indian culture, psychologically speaking, is and has been toward collective integration and identity rather than individual integration and identity (Jarow 19). Outside the story of their romance, various speakers throughout the Mahabharata refer to Urvasi and Pururavas as legendary ideals—Pururavas of kingship, Urvasi of heavenly beauty—and to the exemplary power of their love.

The story’s place within the Mahabharata deserves further study, but for an overview of the tale’s significance, it helps to take a comparative approach, looking at earlier and later versions from the Rig Veda and the Bhagavata Purana as well. Specifically, this analysis will be concerned with what the various versions of the divine-human romance reveal about Hindu conceptions of love and their relevance to spiritual life. In each of its iterations, the story speaks eloquently to the question of love’s relationship both to worldly duty and to spirituality, reflecting various strands of evolving Hindu philosophy. Among the major questions it addresses is: Does love and desire have a place on the spiritual pathị In keeping with the multifaceted, diverse nature of Hinduism, the story’s answer is sometimes “no” and sometimes “yes.”

Summary

The tale of Urvasi and Pururavas in the Mahabharata opens with an account of Urvasi’s magical birth and of Pururavas’s divine lineage, in which he is descended from the creator god Brahma.

Urvasi is an apsara, one of the beautiful nymphs of the heavenly courts who entertain the demigods with song and dance. The apsaras are immortal, but they are not gods. Urvasi is unique among the apsaras, the most beautiful and seductive of them all.

Urvasi was born from the thigh of the sage Narayana, who had developed metaphysical powers through meditation and austerities. Indra felt threatened by Narayana’s powers and sent his apsaras to earth to distract Narayana from meditation at a shrine in the Himalayas. Narayana is understood to have ultimately achieved divine status: in fact, he is dual natured, both human and divine, and in this, he prefigures the romance between Pururavas and Urvasi. In Hindu art, Narayana is pictured as a pair of figures representing a human soul and a divine soul.

In response to Indra’s temptation, Narayana strikes his thigh and out springs Urvasi. (Some versions of the story have Urvasi emerging from a flower that grows from his thigh.) Ur in Sanskrit means “thigh,” and vashi means “to control.” As her name suggests, Urvasi is on one level a symbol of Narayana’s self-control and spiritual power. Somewhat ironically, however, her own power as a nymph consists in seducing and at times controlling men who lack the discipline that allowed Narayana to produce her. Urvasi’s beauty far outshines that of Indra’s other apsaras; Narayana gifts Urvasi to Indra, and she becomes the pride of his celestial court.

The next passage recounts Pururavas’s family lineage beginning with the creator god Brahma, from whom he is descended in only four generations. Brahma had a son named Atri, who married Bhadra; their son was called Som, or the moon. A minor deity, Som was prominent in the ancient Vedic period as the source of soma, the intoxicating divine elixir used in Vedic sacrifices. Som was highly attractive and eloped with Tara, the daughter of sage Brihaspati, while Brihaspati was away. Tara gave birth to a son, Budha, who together with Ila conceived Pururavas. The narrator states that Pururavas becomes “a great king and establishe[s] the Lunar Dynasty named after his grandfather” (“Story of Urvashi and Pururava”). The passage concludes with a reminder to the reader that Kṛṣhṇa (Krishna), the avatar of the god Visṇu (Vishnu), “ages later . . . took birth in this dynasty.” Pururavas’s lineage establishes his proximity to the gods, his kingly virtue, and his role as founder of the dynasty in which the action of the Mahabharata takes place.

The next part of the tale tells of Urvasi and Pururavas’s dramatic meeting. Urvasi, who “found the atmosphere of heaven stifling,” often sneaks down to earth after dark with fellow nymphs “to feel the wet dew under her feet and the soft breeze against her body” (“Story”). Heaven to Urvasi is “cold and synthetic.” For his part, Pururavas is jealous of heaven’s glories, which he has seen firsthand as a regular guest at Indra’s court. After these visits, Pururavas would relieve his envy by flying above the clouds in his chariot “at break-neck speed.”

Just before dawn one such night, on her way back to heaven, Urvasi is kidnapped by a demon. Pururavas witnesses the abduction and flies to her rescue. The story lingers over the life-changing moment of their first touch: “for the first time Urvashi experienced the warm flesh of a mortal, for the first time she heard blood pouring in veins and for the first time she heard the inhalation and exhalation of breath” (“Story”). Pururavas feels “high” being next to the most ravishing of all the heavenly apsaras, whom he has admired before in Indra’s court. But Pururavas leaves Urvasi and the other apsaras to go on their way. They depart passionately in love, but neither knows with confidence whether the other feels the same way.

Separation and longing ensue. Urvasi waits for Pururavas to “make the first move” (“Story”); she is a woman of her time in this regard and holds to traditional gender roles. Meanwhile, Pururavas, in his virtuous humility, cannot imagine Urvasi giving up pride of place in heaven in order to live with a mere mortal, and he avoids rejection by doing nothing: “So both pined for each other.”

In heaven, Urvasi gives a dance performance in which she plays the role of Lakṣmī, goddess of wealth. Distracted by thoughts of Pururavas, she mistakenly calls his name during the performance instead of Visṇu’s. The error offends her teacher, the sage and dramaturge Bharata, who punishes her with a curse: she will be able to live with Pururavas and will have his son, but if ever Pururavas and his son lay eyes on each other, Urvasi must return to heaven. She is thus forced to choose between them.

The story concludes with an unexpected twist. Rather than discouraging her, the curse “actually embolden[s] Urvasi” (“Story”). The reader is told that she has no thought for children; she wants only to be with her beloved. Urvasi sends a friend to earth to seek Pururavas’s whereabouts. He is found at his palace in the garden of Gandhmadan (“intoxicating fragrance”). Urvasi without hesitation leaves heaven and rushes to his embrace. The curse never has a chance to manifest.

In the Mahabharata, this reunion marks the end of the story. Other versions of the tale, however, continue to different endings. The Rig Vedic hymn dealing with Urvasi and Pururavas takes the form of a conversation between the couple near the end of events that unfold only after their reunion at Gandhmadan. As told in a later Brahamana text, and later again in the Bhagavata Purana, these events are, in brief, as follows. Urvasi lives with Pururavas in his palace on two conditions: he must promise to watch over her pet goats—in some versions, they are pet sheep—and Urvasi must never see Pururavas naked. The gandharvas (male nymphs and celestial musicians) miss Urvasi and hatch a plot to bring her back to heaven. One night they steal her pet goats: Pururavas leaps out of bed to give chase, and in that moment, Indra sends down a bolt of lightning, illuminating Pururavas’s nakedness before Urvasi. Urvasi is thus obliged to return to heaven.

In the Rig Veda, Pururavas tries to convince Urvasi to stay, but she repeatedly rejects his arguments—a common pattern in Vedic “conversation” hymns between mortal men and immortal women (Doniger, Rig Veda 245–46). Urvasi tells of their frequent sex—three times daily—and how she yielded to him even when she had “no desire” (253). She also reveals that she has born him a son, which is news to Pururavas. Pururavas threatens to kill himself if he cannot have her, but she tells him not to, arguing that good relations are simply impossible with women since they have “the hearts of jackals” (254). The hymn concludes with a narrator’s consoling remark to Pururavas that though he is mortal—”a kinsman of death”—his son will make the proper sacrifices on earth after Pururavas is in heaven to ensure the well-being of his line (255). The resolution is profoundly Vedic, since Vedic culture saw the sacrifice as the key to preserving dharmic world order.

In the Bhagavata Purana, Pururavas ends up reunited with Urvasi in heaven, but only after a series of trials on earth. When the gandharvas’ trick succeeds and Urvasi leaves, Pururavas wanders the earth “like a madman,” crazed with longing (Jarow 83). He finally comes on Urvasi at Kurukshetra on the Saraswati River, and the same conversation from the Rig Veda takes place. Urvasi warns the king that women are “merciless” and, moreover, associated with death (83). They are reunited, but with difficult conditions set, again, by Urvasi: they will sleep together only one night each year. Initial “delight” in reunion turns to “affliction” in anticipation of their cyclic separation (83). Pururavas propitiates the gandharvas for help, and in the forest, they give him a clay fire vessel of a type used for worship. In theory, Pururavas can perform rites with the vessel that will allow him to reach heaven and be with Urvasi forever. In the next line, crazed by grief, he confuses the vessel for Urvasi, but quickly realizes his mistake, returning to the palace in grief and determined not to “accept a substitute” (83).

The story then inserts an ancient Vedic element: the cosmic ages change, the next yuga begins, and “knowledge of the Veda reveals itself in the king’s mind” (Jarow 83). In Hindu cosmology, time is cyclical, envisioned as four sequentially devolving ages, or yugas. At the end of the final, most degenerate age, the Kali Yuga, the yugas cycle back to the beginning, and the world is reborn with fresh and perfect knowledge of the Vedas. Thus renewed, Pururavas returns to the forest, rubs two sticks together, and chants a mantra: “Pururavas is in the breast of Urvasi” (83). He gains entry to heaven through this fire sacrifice and reunites with Urvasi.

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