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UCHCHAIH-SRAVAS The model horse. The white horse
of Indra produced at the churning of the ocean. It is fed on
ambrosia, and is held to be the king of
horses.
UCHCHHISHTA The remains of a sacrifice, to
which divine powers are ascribed by the
Rig-veda.
UDAYA-GIRI
PARVATA The eastern
mountain from behind which the sun
rises.
UDAYANA 1. A prince of the Lunar race, and
son of Sahas-ranika, who is the hero of a popular story. He was king
of Vatsa, and is commonly called Vatsa-raja. His capital was
Kausambi Vasava-datta, princess of Ujjayini, saw him in a dream and
fen in love with him. He was decoyed to that city, and there kept in
captivity by the king, Chandasena; but when he was set at liberty by
the minister, he carried off Vasava-datta from her father and a
rival suitor. 2. A name of Agastya.
UDDHAVA The friend and counsellor of
Krishna. According to some he was Krishna's cousin, being son of
Deva- bhaga, the brother of Vasu-deva. He was also called
Pavana-vyadhi.
UDGATRI A priest whose duty it is to
chaunt the prayers or hymns from the
Sama-veda.
UDRANKA Haris-chandra's aerial city.
See Saubha.
UGRA
A name of Rudra, or of one of his
manifestations. See Rudra.
UGRASENA A king of Mathura, husband
of Karni, and father of Kansa and Devaka. He was deposed by Kansa,
but Krishna, after killing the latter, restored Ugrasena to the
throne. See Kansa.
UJJAYANl The Greek originand the modern
Oujein or Ujjein. It was the capital of Vikramaditya and one of the
seven sacred cities. Hindu geographers calculate their longitude
from it, making it their first
meridian.
ULUKA
‘An owl’ Son of Kitava. He was king
of a country and people of the same name. He was an ally of the
Kauravas, and acted as their envoy to the
pandavas.
ULUPl A daughter of Kauravya, Raja of
the Nagas, with whom Arjuna contracted a kind of marriage. She was
nurse to her step-son, Babhru-vahana, and had great influence over
him. According to the Vishnu purana she had a son named
Iravat.
UMA ‘Light.’ A
name of the consort of Siva. The earliest known mention of the name
is in the Kena Upanishad, where she appears as a mediatrix between
Brahma and the other gods, and seems to be identified with Vach.
See Devi.
UMA-PATI
‘Husband of Uma,’ that is to say,
Siva.
UPANISHADS ‘Esoteric doctrine.’ The third
division of the Vedas attached to the Brahmana portion, and forming
part of the Sruti or revealed word. The Upanishads are generally
written in prose with interspersed verses, but some are wholly in
verse. There are about 150 of these works, probably even more. They
are of later date than the Brahmanas, but it is thought that the
oldest may date as far back as the sixth century B.C. The object of
these treatises is to ascertain the mystic sense of the text of the
Veda, and so they enter into such abstruse questions as the origin
of the universe, the nature of the deity, the nature of soul, and
the connection of mind and matter. Thus they contain the beginnings
of that metaphysical inquiry which ended in the full development of
Hindu philosophy. The Upanishads have "one remarkable peculiarity,
the total absence of any Brahmanical exclusiveness in their
doctrine. They are evidently later than the older Sanhitas and
Brahmanas, but they breathe an entirely different spirit, a freedom
of thought unknown in any earlier work except the Rig-veda hymns
themselves. The great teachers of the higher knowledge and Brahmans
are continually represented as going to Kshatriya kings to become
their pupils."-Professor Cowell. The Rig-veda has the
Upanishad called Aitareya attached to the Aitareya Brahmana. The
Taittiriya Sanhita of the Yajur has an Upanishad of the same name.
The Vajasaneyi Sanhita has the Isa, and attached to the Satapatha
Brahmana it has the Brihad Aranyaka, which is the most important of
them. The Sama-veda has the Kena and Chhandogya. All these have been
translated into English. The Atharva-veda has the Katha, Prasna,
Mundaka, Mandukya, and others, altogether fifty-two in number. These
are the most important of the Upanishads. Many of the Upanishads
have been printed, and several of them translated in the
Bibliotheca Indica, and by Poley. There is a catalogue by
Muller in the Zeitschrift des D. M. G., voL
xix.
UPAPLAVYA Matsya, the capital of the king of
Virata.
UPA-PURANAS Secondary or subordinate puranas.
See purana.
UPARICHARA A Vasu or demigod, who, according
to the Maha-bharata, became king of Chedi by command of Indra. He
had five eons by his wife; and by an Apsaras, named Adrika,
condemned to live on earth in the form of a fish, he had a son named
Matsya (fish), and a daughter, Satya-vati, who was the mother of
Vyasa.
UPASRUTI A supernatural voice which is
heard at night revealing the secrets of the
future.
UPASUNDA A Daitya, Son of Nisunda, brother
of Sunda, and father of Muka. See
Sunda.
UPA-VEDAS Subordinate or inferior Vedas.
These are sciences which have no connection whatever with the Sruti
or revealed Veda. They are four in number- (1.) Ayur-veda, medicine;
(2.) Gandharva-veda, music and dancing; (3.) Dhanur-veda, archery,
military science; (4.) Sthapatya-veda,
architecture.
UPENDRA A title given to Krishna by
Indra.
URAGAS The Nagas or serpents inhabiting
Patala.
URMILA Daughter of Janaka, sister of
Sita, wife of Lakshmana, and mother of Gandharvi
Somada.
URVA Father of Richika and grandfather
of Jamad-agni.
URVASI A celestial nymph, mentioned first
in the Rig-veda. The sight of her beauty is said to have
caused the generation, in a peculiar way, of the sages Agastya and
Vasishtha by Mitra and Varuna. A verse says, “And thou, O Vasishtha,
art a son of Mitra and Varuna.” She roused the anger of these two
deities and incurred their curse, through which she came to live
upon the earth, and became the wife or mistress of Pura-ravas. The
story of her amour with Pura-ravas is first told in the Satapatha
Brahmana. The loves of Pura-ravas, the Vikrama or hero, and of
Urvasi, the nymph, are the subject of Kali dasa's drama called
Vikramorvasi. See
Puru-ravas.
USANAS 1. The planet Venus or its regent,
also called Sukra (q.v.). 2.
Author of a Dharma-sastra or law-book.
USHA A Daitya princess, daughter of
Bana and grand-daughter of Bali. She is called also Priti-jusha. She
fell in love with a prince whom she saw in a dream, and was anxious
to know if there were such a person. Her favourite companion,
Chitra-lekha, drew the portraits of many gods and men, but Usha's
choice fell upon Aniruddha, son of Pradyumna and grandson of
Krishna. Chitra-lekha, by her magic power, brought Aniruddha to
Usha. Her father, on hearing of the youth's being in the palace,
endeavoured to kill him, but he defended himself successfully. Bana,
however, kept Aniruddha, “binding him in serpent bonds.” Krishna,
Pradyumna, and Bala-rama went to the rescue; and although Bana was
supported by Siva and by Skanda, god of war, his party was defeated,
and Aniruddha was carried back to Dwaraka with his wife Usha.
USHAS The dawn, the ** of the Greeks and
Aurora of the Latins. She is the daughter of heaven and sister of
the Adityas. This is one of the most beautiful myths of the Vedas,
and is enveloped in poetry. Ushas is the friend of men, she smiles
like a young wife, she is the daughter of the sky, she goes w every
house, she thinks of the dwellings of men, she does not despise the
small or the great, she brings wealth : she is always the same,
immortal, divine, age cannot touch her; she is the young goddess,
but she makes men grow old. “All this,” adds Max Muller, “may be
simply allegorical language. But the transition from Devi, ‘the
bright,’ to Devi, the goddess, is so easy; the daughter of the sky
assumes so readily the same personality which is given to the sky,
Dyaus, her father, that we can only guess whether, in every passage,
the poet is speaking of a bright apparition or of a bright goddess,
of a natural vision or a visible deity.” She is called Ahana and
Dyotana, ‘the illumer.’
USHMAPAS The Pitris or a class of Pitris
(q.v.).
USIJ Mentioned in the Rig-veda as the
mother of Kakshivat. A female servant of the queen of the Kalinga
Raja. The king desired his queen to submit to the embraces of the
sage Dirgha-tamas, in order that be might beget a son. The queen
substituted her bondmaid Usij. The sage, cognisant of the deception,
sanctified Usij, and begat upon her a son, Kakshivat, who, through
his affiliation by the king, was a Kshatriya, but, as the son of
Dirgha-tamas, was a Brahman. This story is told in the Maha-bharata
and some of the Puranas.
UTATHYA A Brahman of the race of Angiras,
who married Bhadra, daughter of Soma, a woman of great beauty. The
god Varuna, who had formerly been enamoured of her, carried her off
from Utathya's hermitage, and would not give her up to Narada, who
was Bent to bring her back. Utathya, greatly enraged, drank up all
the sea, still Varuna would not let her go. At the desire of
Utathya, the lake of Varuna was then dried up and the ocean swept
away. The saint then addressed himself to the countries and to the
river:- “Saraswati, disappear into the deserts, and let this land,
deserted by thee, become impure.” “ After the country had become
dried up, Varuna submitted himself to Utathya and brought back
Bhadra. The sage was pleased to get back his wife, and released both
the world and Varuna from their
sufferings.”
UTKALA The modern Orissa. It gives its
name to one of the five northern nations of Brahmans. See
Brahman.
UTTAMAUJAS A warrior of great strength, and
an ally of the pandavas.
UTTANA-PAD ‘Outstretched, supine.’ In the
Vedas, a peculiar creative source from which the earth sprang.
Supposed to refer to the posture of a woman in
parturition.
UTTANA-PADA A son of Manu and Sata-rupa. By
his wife Su-nrita he had four sons, Dhruva, Kirtiman, Ayushman, and
Vasu. Some of the Puranas gave him another wife, Su-ruchi, and a
son, Uttama. See Dhruva.
UTTARA (mas.), UTTARA (fem.)
A son and daughter of the Raja of
Virata. Uttara was killed in battle by Salya. The daughter married
Abhimanyu, son of Arjuna.
UTTARA-KURU A region lying far to the north.
(See Jambu-dwipa.) (Plural.) The inhabitants of this
region.
UTTARA
MIMANSA A school of
philosophy. See Darsana.
UTTARA-NAISHADA-CHARITA A poem on the life of Nala, king
of Nishada, written about the year 1000 A.D. by Sri Harsha, a
celebrated sceptical philosopher. It has been printed in the
Bibliotheca Indica.
UTTARA-RAMA-CHARITA
‘The later chronicle of Rama. A drama by Bhava-bhuti on the latter
part of Rama's life. The second part of King Rama, as the
Maha-vira-charita is the first. The drama is based on the Uttara
Ka1uia of the Ramayana, and quotes two or three verses from that
poem. It was probably written about the beginning of the eighth
century. It has been translated in blank verse by Wilson, and more
literally by Professor C. H. Tawney. There are several editions of
the text. |
