Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c9.3903

c9.3903

Once there lived an ‘apsaras’ (celestial maid) named Vargā in Devāraṇya. She had four friends called Saurabheyī, Samīcī, Budbudā and Latā. Once they were going to the house of Kubera their patron. On the way they saw a hermit. They saw the whole forest shining with the radiance of the power of penance of the hermit. They decided to entice the hermit somehow. With this intention they entered his hermitage. Seeing their dalliance and coquetry, the hermit got angry and cursed them to become crocodiles for a hundred years. They implored him with tears, for liberation from the curse. The hermit told them that in due course a noble man would come and get them out of water and that then they would obtain their original form. They walked towards a lake.