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ANTAKA-APARNĂ.

ANTAKA. 'The ender.' A name of Yama, judge of the dead. ANTARĪKSHA. The atmosphere or firmament between heaven and earth, the sphere of the Gandharvas, Apsarases, and Yakshas.

ANTARVEDI. The Doab or country between the Ganges and the Jumna.

ANU. Son of King Yayati by his wife Sarmishṭhā, a Daitya princess. He refused to exchange his youthful vigour for the curse of decrepitude passed upon his father, and in consequence his father cursed him that his posterity should not possess dominion. Notwithstanding this, he had a long series of descendants, and among them were Anga, Banga, Kalinga, &c., who gave their names to the countries they dwelt in.

ANUKRAMANI, ANUKRAMANIKĀ. An index or table of contents, particularly of a Veda. The Anukramanis of the Vedas follow the order of each Sanhitā, and assign a poet, a metre, and a deity to each hymn or prayer. There are several extant.

ANUMATI. The moon on its fifteenth day, when just short of its full. In this stage it is personified and worshipped as a goddess.

ANUSARA. A Rakshasa or other demon.

ANUVINDA. A king of Ujjayinī. See Vinda.
APARANTA.

On the western border.' A country which

is named in the Vishnu Purana in association with countries in the north; and the Vayu Purana reads the name as Aparita, which Wilson says is a northern nation. The Hari-vansa, however, mentions it as "a country conquered by Parasu-rāma from the ocean," and upon this the translator Langlois observes: "Tradition records that Parasu-rama besought Varuna, god of the sea, to grant him a land which he might bestow upon the Brahmans in expiation of the blood of the Kshatriyas. Varuna withdrew his waves from the heights of Gokarna (near Mangalore) down to Cape Comorin" (As. Researches, v. 1). This agrees with the traditions concerning Parasu-rāma and Malabar, but it is not at all clear how a gift of territory to Brahmans could expiate the slaughter of the Kshatriyas by a Brahman and in behalf of Brahmans.

APARNA. According to the Hari-vansa, the eldest daughter of Himavat and Mena. She and her two sisters, Eka-parnā and

APASTAMBA-APSARAS.

19 Eka-pātalā, gave themselves up to austerity and practised. extraordinary abstinence; but while her sisters lived, as their names denote, upon one leaf or on one pātalā (Bignonia) respectively, Aparnā managed to subsist upon nothing, and even lived without a leaf (a-parnā). This so distressed her mother that she cried out in deprecation, 'U-ma,' 'Oh, don't.' Aparna thus became the beautiful Uma, the wife of Siva.

ĀPASTAMBA. An ancient writer on ritual and law, author of Sutras connected with the Black Yajur-veda and of a Dharma-sastra. He is often quoted in law-books. Two recensions of the Taittiriya Sanhita are ascribed to him or his school. The Sutras have been translated by Bühler, and are being reprinted in the Sacred Books of the East by Max Müller.

ĀPAVA. 'Who sports in the waters.' A name of the same import as Nārāyana, and having a similar though not an identical application. According to the Brahma Purana and the Hari-vansa, Apava performed the office of the creator Brahma, and divided himself into two parts, male and female, the former begetting offspring upon the latter. The result was the production of Vishnu, who created Virāj, who brought the first man into the world. According to the Maha-bhārata, Äpava is a name of the Prajapati Vasishtha. The name of Ãpava is of late introduction and has been vaguely used. Wilson 66 says: According to the commentator, the first stage was the creation of Āpava or Vasishtha or Viraj by Vishnu, through the agency of Brahma, and the next was that of the creation of Manu by Virāj."

APSARAS. The Apsarases are the celebrated nymphs of Indra's heaven. The name, which signifies 'moving in the water,' has some analogy to that of Aphrodite. They are not prominent in the Vedas, but Urvasi and a few others are mentioned. In Manu they are said to be the creations of the seven Manus. In the epic poems they become prominent, and the Rāmāyana and the Purānas attribute their origin to the churning of the ocean. (See Amrita.) It is said that when they came forth from the waters neither the gods nor the Asuras would have them for wives, so they became common to all. They have the appellations of Suranganās, 'wives of the gods,' and Sumad-ātmajās, 'daughters of pleasure.'

"Then from the agitated deep up sprung
The legion of Apsarases, so named

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APSARAS-ĀRANYAKA.

That to the watery element they owed
Their 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,
Nor god nor demon sought their wedded love:
Thus Raghava! they still remain-their charms
The common treasure of the host of heaven."

-(Rāmāyana) WILSON.

In the Puranas various ganās or classes of them are mentioned with distinctive names. The Vayu Purana enumerates fourteen, the Hari-vansa seven classes. They are again distinguished as being daivika, 'divine,' or laukika, '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 Urvasī, and allured austere sages from their devotions and penances, as Menakā and Rambha The Kasi-khanda says "there are thirty-five millions of them, but only one thousand and sixty are the principal." The Apsarases, then, are fairylike beings, beautiful and voluptuous. 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 rewards 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 exhaustive article on the Apsarases in Goldstücker's Dictionary, 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 which are attracted by the sun and form into mist or clouds; their character may be thus interpreted in the few hymns of the Rig-veda where mention is made of them. At a subsequent period... (their attributes expanding with those of their associates the Gandharvas), they became divinities which represent phenomena or objects both of a physical and ethical kind closely associated with that life" (the elementary life of heaven). ARANYAKA. Belonging to the forest.' Certain religious

ARANYANI-ARJUNA.

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and philosophical writings which expound the mystical sense of the ceremonies, discuss the nature of God, &c. They are attached to the Brahmanas, and intended for study in the forest by Brahmans who have retired from the distractions of the world. There are four of them extant: 1. Brihad; 2. Taittiriya; 3. Aitareya; and 4. Kaushitaki Aranyaka. The Aranyakas are closely connected with the Upanishads, and the names are occasionally used interchangeably: thus the Brihad is called indifferently Brihad Aranyaka or Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad; it is attached to the Satapatha Brahmana. The Aitareya Upanishad is a part of the Aitareya Brahmana, and the Kaushitaki Aranyaka consists of three chapters, of which the third is the Kaushitaki Upanishad. "Traces of modern ideas (says Max Müller) are not wanting in the Aranyakas, 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 Aranyakas 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."

ARANYĀNĪ. In the Rig-veda, the goddess of woods and

forests.

ARBUDA. Mount Abu. Name of the people living in the vicinity of that mountain.

ARBUDA. 'A serpent.' Name of an Asura slain by Indra. ARDHA-NĀRI. 'Half-woman.' A form in which Siva 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 Ardhanarīsa and Parāngada.

ARISHTA. A Daitya, and son of Bali, who attacked Krishna in the form of a savage bull, and was slain by him.

ARJUNA. 'White.' 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,

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arms.

ARJUNA.

high-minded, generous, upright, and handsome, the most prominent and the most amiable and interesting of the five brothers. He was taught the use of arms by Drona, and was his favourite pupil. By his skill in arms he won Draupadi at her Swayamvara. For an involuntary transgression he imposed upon himself twelve years' exile from his family, and during that time he visited Parasu-rāma, who gave him instruction in the use of He at this period formed a connection with Ulūpī, a Naga princess, and by her had a son named Iravat. He also married Chitrangada, the daughter of the king of Manipura, by whom he had a son named Babhru-vahana. He visited Krishna at Dwarakā, and there he married Su-bhadra, the sister of Krishna. (See Su-bhadra.) By her he had a son named Abhimanyu. Afterwards he obtained the bow Gandiva from the god Agni, with which to fight against Indra, and he assisted Agni in burning the Khandava forest. When Yudhi-shthira 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 Siva, 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, Varuna, Yama, and Kuvera came to him, and also presented him with their own peculiar weapons. 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. sent him against the Daityas of the sea, whom he vanquished, and then returned victorious to Indra, who "presented him 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 Virata, 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 and the Kaurava princes, many of whose leading warriors he vanquished in single combat. Preparations for the great struggle with the Kauravas now began. Arjuna obtained the personal assistance of Krishna, who acted as his charioteer, and, before the great battle began, related to him the Bhagavad-gītā. On

Indra

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