ANIRUDDHA. 'Uncontrolled.' Son of Pradyumna and grandson of Krishna. He married his cousin, Su-bhadra. A Daitya princess named Usha, daughter of Bana, fell in love with him, and had him brought by magic influence to her apartments in her father's city of Sonita-pura. Bana sent some guards to seize him, but the valiant youth, taking an iron club, slew his assailants. Bans then brought his magic powers to bear and secured him. On discovering whither Aniruddha had been carried, Krishna, Bala-rama, and Pradyumna went to rescue him. A great battle was fought; Bana was aided by Siva and by Skanda, god of war, the former of whom was overcome by Krishna, and the latter was wounded by Garuda and Pradyumna. Bana was defeated, but his life was spared at the intercession of Siva, and Aniruddha was carried home to Dwaraka with Usha as his wife. He is also called Jhashanka and Usha-pati. He had a son named Vajra.

ANJANA. I. The elephant of the west or southwest quarter. 2. A serpent with many heads descended from Kadru.  

ANJANA. Mother of Hanumat by Vayu, god of the wind. 

ANNA-PURNA. 'Full of food.' A form of Durga, worshipped for her power of giving food CJ. the Roman Anna Perenna. 

ANSUMAT, ANSUMAN. Son of Asamanjas and grandson of Sagara. He brought back to earth the horse which had been carried off from Sagara's Aswa-medha sacrifice and he discovered the remains of that king's sixty thousand sons, who had been killed by the fire of the wrath of Kapila. 

ANTAKA. `The ender.' A name of Yama, judge of the dead. 

ANTARIKSHA. The atmosphere or firmament between heaven and earth, the sphere of the Gandharvas, Apsarases, and Yakshas.  

ANTARVED. The Doab or country between the Ganges and the Jumna. 

ANU. Son of King Yayati by his wife Sarmishtha, a Daitya princess. He refused to exchange his youthful vigour for the curse of decrepitude passed upon his father, and in consequence his father cursed him that his posterity should not possess dominion. Notwithstanding this, he had a long series of descendants, and among them were Anga, Banga, Kalinga, &c., who gave their names to the countries they dwelt in. 

ANUKRAMANI, ANUKRAMANIKA. An index or table of contents, particularly of a Veda. The Anukramanis of the Vedas follow the order of each Sanhita, and assign a poet, a metre, and a deity to each hymn or prayer. There are several extant.  

ANUMATI. The moon on its fifteenth day, when just short of its full In this stages it is personified and worshipped as a goddess.  

ANUSARA. A Rakshasa or other demon.  

ANUVINDA. A king of Ujjayini. See Vinda. 

APARANTA.  'On the western border.' A country which is named in the Vishnu Purana in association with countries in the north; and the Vayu Purana reads the name as Aparita, which Wilson says is a northern nation. The Hari-vansa, how- ever, mentions it as "a country conquered by Parasu-rama from the ocean," and upon this the translator Langlois observes : "Tradition records that Parasu-rama besought Varuna, god of the sea, to grant him a land which he might bestow upon the Brahmans in expiation of the blood of the Kshatriyas. Varuna withdrew his waves from the heights of Gokarna near Mangalore) down to Cape Comorin" (As. Researches, v I). This agrees with the traditions concerning Parasu-rama and Malabar, but it is not at all clear how a gift of territory to Brahmans could expiate the slaughter of the Kshatriyas by a Brahman and in behalf of Brahmans. 

APARNA. According to the Hari-vansa, the eldest daughter of Himavat and Meni. She and her two sisters, Eka-parna and Eka-patala, gave themselves up to austerity and practised extraordinary abstinence; but while her sisters lived, as their names denote, upon one leaf or on one patala (Bignonia) respectively, Aparna managed to subsist upon nothing, and even lived without a leaf (a-parna). This so distressed her mother that she cried out in deprecation, `U-ma,' `Oh, don't.' Aparna thus became the beautiful Uma, the wife of Siva. 

APASTAMBA. An ancient writer on ritual and law, author of Sutras connected with the Black Yajur-veda and of a Dharma-sastra. He is often quoted in law-books. Two recessions of the Taittiriya Sanhita are ascribed to him or his school. The Sutras have been translated by Buhler, and are being re-printed in the Sacred Books of the East by Max Muller.  

APAVA. 'Who sports in the waters.' A name of the same import as Narayana, and having a similar though not an identical application. According to the Brahma Purana and the Hari-vansa, Apava performed the office of the creator Brahma, and divided himself into two parts, male and female, the former begetting offspring upon the latter. The result was the production of Vishnu, 'who created Viraj, who brought, the first man into the world. According to the Maha-bharata, Apava is a name of the Prajapati Vasishtha. The name of Apava is of late introduction and has been vaguely used. Wilson says:" According to the commentator, the first stage was the creation of Apava or Vasishtha or Viraj by Vishnu, through the agency of Brahma, and the next was that of the creation of Manu by Viraj."  

APSARAS. The Apsarases are the celebrated nymphs of Indra's heaven. The name, which signifies 'moving in the water,' has some analogy to that of Aphrodite. They are not prominent in the Vedas, but Urvasi and a few others are mentioned. In Manu they are said to be the creations of the seven Manus. In the epic poems they become prominent, and the Ramayana and the Puranas attribute their origin to the churning of the ocean. (See Amrita.) It is said that when they came forth from the waters neither the gods nor the Asuras would have them for wives, so they became common to all. They have the appellations of Suranganas, 'wives of the gods,' and Sumad -atmajas, daughters of pleasure.'

"Then from the agitated deep up sprung The legion of Apsarases, so named That to the watery element they owed. Their being. Myriads were they born, and all in vesture heavenly clad, and heavenly gems :Yet more divine their native semblance, rich With all the gifts of grace, of youth and beauty. A train innumerous followed ; yet thus fair, Nor god nor demon sought their wedded love : Thus Raghava! they still remain-their charms. The common treasure of the host of heaven"         

 -(Ramayana)  WILSON.

In the Puranas various ganas or classes of them are mentioned with distinctive names. The Vayu Purana enumerates fourteen, the Hari-vansa seven classes. They are again distinguished as being daivika, 'divine,' or laukika, 'wordily.' The former are said to be ten in number and the latter thirty-four, and these are the heavenly charmers who fascinated heroes, as Urvasi, and allured austere sages from their devotions and penances, as Menaka and Rambha. The Kasi-khanda says "there are thirty-five millions of them, but only one thousand and sixty are the principal." The Apsarases, then, are fairylike beings, beautiful and voluptuous. They are the wives or the mistresses of the Gandharvas, and are not prudish in the dispensation of their favours. Their amours on earth have been numerous, and they are the rewards in Indra's paradise held out to heroes who fall in battle. They have the power of changing their forms; they are fond of dice, and give luck to whom they favour. In the Atharva-veda they are not so amiable; they are supposed to produce madness (love's madness?), and so there are charms and incantations for use against them. There is a long and exhaustive article on the Apsarases in Goldstucker's Dictionary, from which much of the above has been adapted. As regards their origin he makes

the following speculative observations:- "Originally these divinities seem to have been personifications of the vapours which are attracted by the sun and form into mist or clouds; their character may be thus interpreted in the few hymns of the Rig-veda where mention. is made of them. At a subsequent period ...(their attributes expanding with those of their 888Ociates the Gandharvas), they became divinities which represent phenomena or objects both of a physical and ethical kind closely associated with that life" (the elementary life of heaven).  

ARANYAKA. `Belonging to the forest.' Certain religious and philosophical writings, which expound the mystical sense of the ceremonies, discuss the nature of God, &c. They are attached to the Brahmanas, and intended for study in the forest by Brahmans who have retired from the distractions of the world. There are four of them extant: 1. Brihad; 2. Taittiriya; 3. Aitareya; and 4. Kaushitaki Aranyaka. The Aranyakas are closely connected with the Upanishads, and the names are occasionally used interchangeably: thus the Brihad is called indifferently Brihad Aranyaka or Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad; it is attached to the Satapatha Brahmana. The Aitareya Upanishad is a part of the Aitareya Brahmana, and the Kaushitaki Aranyaka consists of three chapters, of which the third is the Kaushitaki Upanishad. "Traces of modern ideas (says Max Muller) are not wanting in the Aranyakas, and the very fact that they are destined for a class of men who had retired from the world in order to give themselves up to the contemplation of the highest problems, shows an advanced and already declining and decaying society, not unlike the monastic age of the Christian world. " " In one sense the Aranyakas are old, for they reflect the very dawn of thought; in another they are modern, for they speak of that dawn with all the experience of a past day. There are passages in these works unequalled in any language for grandeur, boldness, and simplicity. These passages are the relics of a better age. But the generation which became the chronicler of those Titanic wars of thought was a small race; they were dwarfs, measuring the footsteps of departed giants." 

ARANYANl. In the Rig-veda, the goddess of woods and forests.  

ARBUDA. Mount Abu. Name of the people living in the vicinity of that mountain.  

ARBUDA. 'A serpent.' Name of an Asura. Slain by Indra. 

ARDHA-NARI. 'Half-woman.' A form in which Siva is represented as half-male and half-female, typifying the male and female energies. There are several stories accounting for this form. It is called also Ardhanama and parangada.  

ARISHTA. A Daitya, and son of Bali, who attacked Krishna in the form of a savage bull, and was slain by him.