The King and the Apsara

The sages told the Pandavas of Pururavas and Urvashi - the love of a mortal king and a nymph of heaven, lost in a single careless moment and won back only through long grief and longing. It is one of the oldest love stories in the world, and among the saddest and most beautiful.

Pururavas was a noble and handsome king of the ancient lunar dynasty, righteous and brave and famed through the worlds. And Urvashi was the loveliest of the apsaras, the celestial nymphs who dwell in the heaven of Indra and dance in the courts of the gods - a being of such beauty that she was the glory of heaven itself. By the turnings of fate, this nymph of heaven and this king of earth came to love each other, and Urvashi descended from the world of the gods to live with Pururavas as his wife upon the earth.