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Purūravas and Urvaśī

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

J. C. Wright
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Extract

It is customary to describe the Ṛavedic dialogue of Purūravas and Urvaśī (ṚV 10.95, referred to hereafter as D) either as the source ‘from which all the different versions have originated … an exaltation of a popular fairy-tale’ (H. D. Velankar, The Vikramorvaśīya, New Delhi, 1961, xxxxiii) or as ‘ein einheitliches festgefügtes Kunstwerk’ based on the fairy-tale narrated ‘im alten schlichten Märchenstil’ in Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, 11.5.1 (K. F. Geldner).

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , October 1967 , pp. 526 - 547
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1967

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References

1 See now Schneider, U., ‘Yams and Yamī’ IIJ, x, 1, 1967, 1 ff. Like Kosambi with reference to D, he postulates a quaint domestic ritual (‘Aberglaube’ p. 30), somewhat to the detriment of the philosophical content (‘der Verdacht eines vorgeburtlichen Inzests’).Google Scholar

2 The anomalous formation maghávan may satisfactorily be explained as an original participle *maghváis ‘able’ which has been contaminated with maghá: -vās in nom. sg. maghavāṁ 4.16.1, Ir. mayavō (‘unverheiratet’ AIW, rests on a Pahlavi comment, not intended as a gloss and based on a misconstruction); -vas in voc. sg. *maghavaḥ →purūravaḥ (*pururāvan), ṛtāvaḥ (Ir. rtāvan); -us- in late Av. and OPers. magu ˜ vidú, dāśu, mīḍhu; -vat- in maghávadbhyaḥ (perhaps ṚV 10.93.14 metrically *maghvátsu?).

3 In view of the parallel development in Greek (Pandora as vetsudharā kāmaduh Ilā-Urvaśī, and Polydorus as Vasiṣṭha, water-borne and slaughtered for the benefit of his adoptive father; for the names, cf. pururắvan/purtirūveta, 2.27.17 bhūridắvan āpí, and 8.2.21 vīráuya bhūridắvarī sumatí, triṣú jātátaya mánas), it may be considered likely that Ir. g uš rvan and m rvan acute; (who play in the Yasna the plaintive and inquiring roles taken by the female and male speakers in D 1–15, cf. especially v. 5 and v. 12, and the váse -bringing and ártha -bringing roles of Pandora and Polydorus, Urvaśā and Pūrfiravas) presuppose a distinction made in Indo-Iranian between rāvan and parurāvan. Apart from its accidental renovation as purūrávas, pururắvan is virtually a hapax legomenon in Sanskrit, and, like rvan, rāvaṇa subsists alone. The distinction will be modelled on the pairs gó/gótanta, gau /gaotǝma, váau / vásiṣṭha (the rātí of gó and gótanta respectively, cf. I) v. 4 and v. 17), v ṣan/v ṣantama, spǝnta/sp ništa, etc., and will convey inferiority as opposed to the divine and the ideal: notions of mortality, the Fall, darkness, evil, etc. Like Rāma(n) and Rāvaṇ(a), it would be possible to identify Lakṣmaṇa and Rakṣas: cf. lakṣmaṇắ and pāp lakṣm .

4 For the element śúinas, cf. [purūrávasaḥ] śvātréṇa (1.31.4, below), Ir. sūra anāhita (˜ urṹcī áditi ˜ urváśī íṭā ), and (for the influence of śván ) D v. 14 f. For śépa, cf. vaitasá in D and apactrāpatéḥ śépaḥ AV 4.37.7. Redemption by the son's death is prominent also in the story of Śuka and Urvaśī, Mbh., BORI, 12.318–20.

5 cf. also AV 11.3.12 [tásyaudanásya] s tāḥ páirśavaḥ ‘The Furrows are the rib-bones of Odana (the Child of Ocean)’. That s tāḥ are personified follows from v. 1; Odana personifies the world and may be identified as apắṃ nāpāt by (at least ostensible) etymology. The idea, incomprehensible in itself, that Woman is one rib-bone of Man (ṚV 10.86.23) must rest on a graphic comparison between female ‘fertile’ furrows and the prominent rib-cage of the male. The corollary is presented in the same AV verse: sikatd iivadhyam ‘ The Dusts are the excretion of Odana’: here síkatā ṹvadhyam seems properly to denote menses (cf. notably ṚV 1.162.10 ṹvadhyam udárasya and AV 9.7.17 rákṣāṃai lóhitam itarajanắ ṹvadhyam). The Child is hermaphrodite, and Man and Woman are mutually complementary as content (Dust) and matrix (Furrow). It seems clear that the Biblical account of the genesis from the soil and from the rib-bone presupposes an identical train of thought; and it may be considered likely that the name ‘Persians’ denotes ‘sons of Eve’. I am indebted to Professor Derrett for the above suggestion of graphic comparison.

6 The word droha which follows, resuming tasya (araṇī), is presumably punning: ‘plant’ and ‘sexual assault’. If mathnāti and manthati are to be separated (EWA, II, 567, 578), mathitvā will encompass both Promethean seizure and ‘Epimethean ’ ritual fire-lighting by friction; it seems, however, still possible to assume that two aspects of cosmic copulation have been lifferentiated within Indo-Iranian.