There are many mythological stories in Hinduism, and in such stories, almost all the gods and goddesses, kings and emperors, warriors and apsaras are mentioned. Today we are ready to narrate to you one such mythological story, which is depicted as the tragic love story of Urvashi and her husband Pururavas. Several parts are seen in this story, which is full of love, compassion, and jealousy, so let's start the story by not wasting much time.
Pururavas was a Chandravanshi or the first lunar King, his father's name was Budha (connotes the planet Mercury), and his mother's name was Ila. Budha is also known as Soumya (son of Moon). Pururavas was a great warrior of his time, and Indra (the king of Svarga) had many times sought help from him during the war against the Asuras. Urvashi on the other hand was a beautiful nymph (Apsara) in the court of Indra. Bored with the comforts of the celestial life, she and other apsaras once came to spend some time on earth, during this time Urvashi started to enjoy more earthly life than Svarga Loka's life. She began to like earthly life filled with human emotions as opposed to the always-happy living in the heavens. After a few days, Urvashi was to return to Swarg Lok, and while returning back with the other Apsaras, she was abducted by a demon or asura named Keshi, who was determined to make her his bride.
When she was screaming furiously, Pururavas was traveling nearby and saw the Keshi (demon). He chased the demon on his chariot and fought with him, and rescued Urvashi from him. During the fight, Pururavas accidentally touched Urvashi. This was the first time when a mortal had touched Urvashi, causing an emotion of warmth to course through her body. Pururavas too became attracted to Urvashi by seeing the seductive beauty of this heavenly nymph. But then, Urvashi left him and went back. In heaven, she could not stop thinking about Pururavas. But the love of these two reached a higher level during a play. Actually, Urvashi participated in a play, in which she was playing the role of goddess Lakshmi and while playing the character, Urvashi accidentally called the name of Pururavas instead of taking the name of Lord Vishnu as her beloved.
After watching the entire scene, rishi Bharata who was directing the play got angry and cursed Urvashi that due to being attracted towards a human, she would have to stay on the earth and beget children like humans. This curse made the other apsaras recoil in horror but Urvashi did not feel a bit sad due to this curse. However, Indra modified the curse, so that she would remain an apsara. After this, Pururava and Urvashi start getting lost in each other's memories. And once again Urvashi descended on Earth, and both met each other and expressed their love. The two decided to live together, but Urvashi had some conditions as she was still bound to Indra’s heaven.
Urvashi stated her first condition as you must always protect the two sheep that she has brought with her, if anything happens to them, she will leave the earth. The second condition was about she will always consume ghee and according to the third condition, we must never see each other naked apart from when we’re making love. Pururavas accepted Urvashi's all conditions and both started living together happily, but soon their life was going to be tragic. So far they had completed 64 years in their love affair but still, both were living happily and were not ready to leave each other. Seeing this, the Indra and other devas of Swarglok were no longer liking the love affair of Pururava and Urvashi, as they were missing the most beautiful apsara that ever existed in heaven. They were jealous of their love, because, after Urvashi's arrival on earth, the brightness of heaven was also gone, so they planned to separate them.
One night Urvashi's sheep were stolen by the devas, and on hearing the noise of sheep, Urvashi woke up and requested Pururavas to see what was happening. Pururavas was naked at the time, as he had just woken up from sleep and did not have enough time to wear clothes, And being in a naked state, he had to chase the devas. During this time, the devas sent lightning from heaven that illuminated the night and the two saw each other naked, violating the third condition. The heartbroken Urvashi left for heaven as soon as this condition was violated. Both were extremely unhappy, though Urvashi took their child with her and later asked Pururavas to meet at Kurukshetra to give his child back to him. Later due to multiple sequences of events, Urvashi came back to Earth several times, and afterward, she had five other sons with Pururavas.
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