A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.119

c5.119

APARNĀ. According to the Hari-vansa, the eldest daughter of Himavat and Menā. She and her two sisters, Eka-parnā and Eka-pātalā, gave themselves up to austerity and practised extraordinary abstinence; but while her sisters lived, as their names denote, upon one leaf or on one pātalā (*Bignonia*) respectively, Aparnā managed to subsist upon nothing, and even lived without a leaf (*a-parnā*). This so distressed her mother that she cried out in deprecation, ‘U-mā,’ ‘Oh, don’t.’ Aparnā thus became the beautiful Umā, the wife of Siva.