Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c5.943

c5.943

DĪRGHIKĀ A daughter of Viśvakarman. She was abnormally tall, and since there was the Śāstric injunction that he who married such women would die within six months none came forward to wed her. Dīrghikā began a penance for a good husband. As it continued for years together symptoms of old age began to appear in her. At this juncture an old and ailing householder came there. On certain conditions he married Dīrghikā. After sometime, in obedience to the husband's wish Dīrghikā set out on a tour carrying him on her shoulders. Though Māṇḍavya cursed her husband on their way, due to the chastity of Dīrghikā the curse proved to be ineffective. The similarity in the stories of Śāṇḍili and this Dīrghikā leads us to think that they might have been one and the same person.