APSARAS. - This name means "she who moves in the water" and designates an Indian divinity of the waters, akin to the Greek Nereid. Already in the Rgveda, X, 123, 5, the A. is associated with the Gandharva, a spirit of the air to whom she smiles and who loves her. Even when the A., having abandoned their naturalistic substratum, become celestial nymphs and personify the feminine power of seduction, they love to frequent the shores of lakes and rivers in memory of their origin. The Atharvaveda calls them wives of the Gandharvas, who reappear in epic mythology as celestial musicians. They play the viṇā, a kind of lute, and the A. dance and sing. As in Greece, so too in India the founders of famous dynasties boast a semidivine origin from a mortal hero and a celestial nymph. The episode of Purūravas and Urvaśī, the Melusine of India, is the subject of a Vedic hymn (Rv, X, 95) before that of Kālidāsa's famous drama, the Vikramorvaśīya. According to the Rāmāyaṇa, the A. were born from the churning of the ocean together with Śrī, the Indian Venus, and with the amṛta (v.).

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, Berlin 1894, pp. 250-54; V. Fausböll, Indian Mythology, London 1903, pp. 123-26.

Ferdinando Belloni Filippi

@incollection{ec1_apsaras, author = {Belloni, Filippi Ferdinando}, title = {Apsàras}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {I}, pages = {1716--1717}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1948}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/apsaras} }

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Apsaras

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