ABHASWARAS. A class of deities, sixty-four in number, of whose nature little is known.  

ABHIDHANA. A dictionary or vocabulary. There are many such works. One of the oldest of them is the Abhidhana ratna - mala, of Halayudha Bhatta (circa 7th cent.), and one of the best is the Abhidhana Chinta-mani of Hema-chandra, a Jaina writer of celebrity (I3th cent.). The former has been edited by Aufrecht; the latter by Colebrooke and by Bohtlingk and Rieu.  

ABHIMANI. Agni, the eldest son of Brahma. By his wife Swaha he had three sons, Pavaka, Pavamana, and Suchi " They had forty-five sons, who, with the original son of Brahma and his three descendants, constitute the forty-nine fires." See Agni. 

ABHIMANYU. Son of Arjuna by his wife Su-bhadra:, and known by the metronymic Saubhadra. He killed Lakshmana, the son of Dur-yodhana, on the second day of the great battle of the Maha-bharata, but on the thirteenth day he himself fell fighting heroically against fearful odds. He was very hand- some. His wife was Uttara, daughter of the Raja of Virata. His son, Parikshit, succeeded to the throne of Hastinapuram. 

ABHIRA, ABHIRA. A cowherd; according to Manu the offspring of a Brahman by a woman of the Ambashtha or medical tribe. A people located in the north of India along the Indus. There has been a good deal of misapprehension respecting this people. Hindu writers have described them as living in the north and in the west, the quarter varying according to the locality of the writer, and translators have mixed them up with a neighbouring people, the Sudras, sometimes called Suras, with whom they are generally associated, and have called them Surabhiras. Their modern representatives are the Ahira, and perhaps there is something more than identity of locality in their association with the Sudras. It has been suggested that the country or city of the Abhiras is the Ophir of the Bible.  

ABHIRAMA-MANI A drama in seven acts on the history of Rama, written by Sundara Misra in 1599 A. D. " The com- position possesses little dramatic interest, although it has some literary merit. "-Wilson. 

ACHARA. 'Rule, custom, usage.' The rules of practice of castes, orders, or religion. There are many books of rules which have this word for the first member of their titles, as Achara- chandrika, moonlight of customs of the customs of the Sudras; Acharadarsa, `looking-glass of customs;' Achara-dipa, 'lamp of customs,' &c., &c.  

ACHARYA. A spiritual teacher or guide. A title of Drona, the teacher of the pandavas.  

ACHYUTA. 'Unfallen;’ a name of Vishnu or Krishna. It has been variously interpreted as signifying " he who does not perish with created things," in the Maha-bharata as " he who is not distinct from final emancipation," and in the Skanda purana as'' he who never declines (or varies) from his proper nature."  

ADBIIUTA-BRAHMANA. ' The Brahmana of miracles. A Brahmana of the samaveda, which treats of auguries and marvels. It has been published by Weber. 

ADHARMA. Unrighteousness, vice; personified as' son of Brahma, and called "the destroyer of all beings." 

ADHIRATHA. A charioteer. The foster-father of Karna, according to some he was King of Anga, and according to others the charioteer of King Dhritarashtra; perhaps he was both.  

ADHWARYU. A priest whose business it is to recite the prayers of the Yajurveda. 

ADHYATMAN. The supreme spirit, the soul of the universe. 

ADHYATMA RAMAYANA. A very popular work, which is considered to be a part of the Brahmanda Purana. It has been printed in India. See Ramayana.  

ADI-PURANA. 'The fires Purina,' a title generally conceded to the Brahma Purana.  

ADITI. 'Free, unbounded.' Infinity; the boundless heaven as compared with the finite earth; or, according to M. Muller, "the visible infinite, visible by the naked eye; the endless expanse beyond the earth, beyond the clouds, beyond the sky." In the Rig-veda she is frequently implored "for blessings on children and cattle, for protection and for forgiveness. "Aditi is called Deva-matri, `mother of the gods,' and is represented as being the mother of Daksha and the daughter of Daksha. On this statement Yaska remarks in the Nirukta :-" How can this be possible? They may have had the same origin; or, according to the nature of the gods, they may have been born from each other, have derived their substance from one another." "Eight sons were born from the body of Aditi; she approached the gods with seven but cast away the eighth, Marttanda (the sun)." These seven were the Adityas. In the Yajur-veda Aditi is addressed as "Supporter of the sky, sustainers of the earth, sovereign of this world, wife of Vishnu; "but in the Maha-bharata and Ramayana, as well as in the puranas, Vishnu is called the son of Aditi In the Vishnu purana she is said to be the daughter of Daksha and wife of Kasyapa, by whom she was mother of Vishnu, in his dwarf incarnation (wherefore he is sometimes called Aditya), and also of Indra, and she is called " the mother of the gods " and "the mother of the world. " Indra acknowledged her as mother, and Vishnu, after receiving the adoration of Aditi, addressed her in thes13 words: " Mother, goddess, do thou show favour unto me and grant me thy blessing." According to the Matsya Purana a pair of ear-rings was produced at the churning of the ocean, which Indra gave to Aditi, and several of the Puranas tell a story of these ear-rings being stolen and carried off to the city of Prag-jyotisha by the Asura king Naraka, from whence they were brought back and restored to her by Krishna. Devaki, the mother of Krishna, is represented as being a new birth or manifestation of Aditi. See Max Muller's Rig Veda, i. 23O; Muir's Texts, iv. II, v. 35. 

ADITYA. In the early Vedic times the Adityas were six, or more frequently seven, celestial deities, of whom Varuna was chief, consequently he was the Aditya. They were sons of Aditi, who had eight sons, but she approached the gods with seven, having cast away the eighth, Marttanda (the sun). ID after-times the number was increased to twelve, as representing the sun in the twelve months of the year. Aditya is one of the names of the sun. Dr. Muir quotes the following from Professor Roth: -" There (in the highest heaven) dwell and reign those gods who bear in common the name of Adityas. We must, however, if we would discover their earliest character, abandon the conceptions, which in a later age, and even in that of the heroic poems, were entertained regarding these deities. According to this conception they were twelve sun gods, bearing evident reference to the twelve months. But for the most ancient period we must hold fast the primary signification of their name. They are the inviolable, imperishable, eternal beings. Aditi, eternity, or the eternal, is the element, which sustains or is sustained by them. The eternal and inviolable element in which the Adityas dwell, and which forms their essence, is the celestial light. The Adityas, the gods of this light, do not therefore by any means coincide with any of the forms in which light is manifested in the universe. They are neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, nor dawn, but the eternal sustainers of this luminous life, which exists, as it were, behind all these phenomena."

The names of the six Adityas are Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Varuna, Daksha, and Ansa. Daksha is frequently excluded, and Indra, Savitri (the sun), and Dhatri are added. Those of the twelve Adityas are variously given, but many of them are names of the sun.  

ADITYA PURANA. One of the eighteen Upa-puranas.  

AGASTI, AGASTYA. A Rishi, the reputed author of several hymns in the Rig-veda, and a very celebrated personage in Hindu story. He and Vasishtha are said in the Rig-veda [.0 be the offspring of Mitra and Varuna, whose seed fell from them at the sight of Urvasi; and the commentator Sayana adds that Agastya was born in a water-jar as " a fish of great lustre, whence he was called Kalasi-suta, Kumbha-sambhava, and Ghatodbhava. From his parentage he was called Maitra-varuni and Aurvasiya; and as he was very" small when he was born, not more than a span in length, he was called Mina. Though he is thus associated in his birth with Vasishtha, he is evidently later in date, and he is not one of the Prajapatis. His name. Agastya is derived by a forced etymology from a fable, which represents him as having commanded the Vindhya mountains to prostrate themselves before him, through which they lost their primeval altitude; or rather, perhaps, the fable has been invented to account for his name. This miracle has obtained for him the epithet Vindhya-kuta; and he acquired another name, Pitabdhi, or Samudra-chuluka, Ocean drinker,' from another fable, according to which he drank up the ocean because it had offended him, and because he wished to help the gods in their wars with the Daityas when the latter had hidden themselves in the waters. He was afterwards made regent of the star Canopus, which bears his name. The puranas represent him as being the son of Pulastya, the sage from whom the Rakshasas sprang. He was one of the narrators of "the Brahma Purana and also a writer on medicine.

The Maha-bharata relates a legend respecting the creation of his wife. It says that Agastya saw his ancestors suspended by their heels in a pit, and was told by them that they could be rescued only by his begetting a son. Thereupon he formed a girl out of the most graceful parts of different animals and passed her secretly into the palace of the king of Vidarbha. There the child grew up as a daughter of the king, and was demanded in marriage by Agastya. Much against his wills the king was constrained to consent, and she became the wife of the sage. She was named Lopa-mudra, because the animals had been subjected to loss (lopa) by her engrossing their distinctive beauties, as the eyes of the deer, &c. She was also called Kausitaki and Vara-prada. The same poem also tells a story exhibiting his superhuman power, by which he turned King Nahusha into a serpent and afterwards restored him to his proper form. See Nahusha.

It is in the Ramayana that Agastya makes the most distinguished figure. Ho dwelt in a hermitage on Mount Kunjara, situated in a most beautiful country to the south of the Vindhya mountains, and was chief of the hermits of the south. He kept the Rakshasas who infested the south under control, so that the country was " only gazed upon and not possessed by them. " His power over them is illustrated by a legend which represents him as eating up a Rakshasa named Vatapi who assumed the form of a ram, and as destroying by a flash of his eye the Rakshasa's brother, Ilvala, who attempted to avenge him. (See Vatapi.) Rama in his exile wandered to the hermitage of Agastya with Sita and Lakshmana. The sage received him with the greatest kindness, and became his friend, adviser, and protector. He gave him the bow of Vishnu; and when Rama was restored to his kingdom, the sago accompanied him to Ayodhya.

The name of Agastya holds a great place also in Tamil literature, and he is "venerated in the south as the first teacher of science and literature to the primitive Dravidian tribes;" so says Dr. Caldwell, who thinks " we shall not greatly err in placing the era of Agastya in the seventh, or at least in the sixth century B.C. " 'Wilson also had previously testified to the same effect: "The traditions of the south of India ascribe to Agastya a principal share in the formation of the Tamil language and literature, and the general tenor of the legends relating to him denotes his having been instrumental in the introduction of the Hindu religion and literature into the Peninsula. " 

AGHASURA. (Agha the Asura.) An Asura who was Kansa's general. He assumed the form of a vast serpent, and Krishna's companions, the cowherds, entered its mouth, mistaking it for a mountain cavern: but Krishna rescued them.  

AGNAYI. Wife of Agni. She is seldom alluded to in the Veda and is not of any importance.  

AGNEYA. Son of Agni, a name of Karttikeya or Mars; also an appellation of the Muni Agastya and others.  

AGNEYASTRA .'The weapon of fire.' Given by Bharadwaja to Agnivesa, the son of Agni, and by him to Drona. A similar weapon wag, according to the Vishnu Purana, given by the sage Aurva to his pupil King Sagara, and with it" he conquered the tribes of barbarians who had invaded his patrimonial possessions."

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