You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘apsaras’
tag. In both Hindu and Buddhist mythology a group of beautiful &
ethereal female spirits inhabit the skies. These elegant beings
are known as apsaras. They are lesser goddesses of water and
clouds. In classical Indian literature apsaras are often
portrayed dancing seductively in the courts of the gods or
married to ganharvas—nature spirits who play celestial music for
the gods. Both groups of entities are particularly connected
with the court of Indra, the god of the skies and storm, and
also king of the gods (although that title is less absolute in
Hinduism than in other cosmologies). In many myths, apsaras are
cast as supporting characters. They are roughly analogous to
nymphs and naiads in Greek mythology or angels in Abrahamic
myths. Indra constantly felt threatened by great ascetics who
amassed titanic spiritual and magical power through physical
austerity. One of his favorite ways of dealing with these
powerful yogis was to send apsaras to sed