A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s2.176

v1.c8.s2.176

Whether and how Purūravas is reunited with his beloved is not quite clear either in the Ṛgveda or in the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa. It seems that he becomes transformed into a Gandharva and attains heaven, where at last the joy of reunion is his. The story of Purūravas and Urvaśī has often been retold in India: it is briefly hinted at in the Kāṭhaka belonging to the black Yajurveda, it is retold in exegetic works attached to the Veda,¹ in the Harivaṁśa, an appendix to the Mahābhārata, in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa and in the book of tales Kathāsaritsāgara, and no less a poet than Kālidāsa has founded one of his immortal dramas on it. From the circumstance that, in spite of all efforts to bring the verses of the Ṛgveda into unison with the later narratives and to utilize the latter in the elucidation of the Ṛgvedic poem,² there is still so much that is obscure and unexplained in these verses, we see how very much earlier the Ṛgveda is than any other known work of Indian literature.