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Articles: Devotion | Pururavasu and Urvashi
- Mr. Venkata Ramanamurty Mallajosyula
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There was a king by name Pururavas. Hunting one day in the Himlayas, he heard a cry for help, two apsaras had been carried off by rakshasas from a pleasure-party in the flowery woods. Pururavas pursued and them, they were Urvashi and her friend Chitralekha. He prayed Urvashi for her love, she granted it, with this condition: ”Thou shall not let me see thee naked.”
Long she dwelt with him, and time came when she would be a mother. But the Gandharvas, who are the friends and companions of the apsaras, missed their fellow, and they said together: It is long indeed, that Urvashi dwells with men, find out a way to bring her back. ”They were agreed upon a way to bring her back. She had a ewe with two small lambs, dear pets of hers, tied to her bed. While yet Pururavas lay beside his darling the Gandharvas carried off a lamb. ”Alas!” she cried, ”they have carried off my pet as though no hero and no man was with me. ”Then they carried off the second, and Urvaashi made the same complaint.
Pururavas thought” ”How can that be a place without a hero and without a man where I am found? ”Naked, he sprang up in chase; too long he thought it needed to pit on a garment. Then the gandharvas filled the sky with lightning and Urvashi saw him, clear as a day, and, indeed, at once she vanished.
The sorry king wandered over Hindusthan wailing for his darling. At last he reached a lake called Anyata-plaksha. There he saw a flock of swans; they were the apsaras, with Urvashi, but Pururavas did not know them. She said: ”There is he with whom I dwelt. ”The apsaras said together: ”Let us reveal ourselves. ”and, “So be it,” they said again. Then Pururavas saw Urvashi and prayed her sorely: ”O dear wife stay and hear me. Unspoken secrets that are yours and mine shall yield no joy; stay then, and let us talk together. ”But Urvashi answered: What have I to do to speak with thee? I have departed like the first of dawns. Go home gain, Pururavas. I am like the very wind and hard to bind. Thou didst break the covenant between us; go to thy home again, for I am hard to win.”
The Pururavas grieved and cried: ”Then shall thy friend and fellow rush away this day, upon the farthest journey bent, never returning; death will he seek, and the fierce wolves shall have him.”
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