apsara
अप्सरा apsarāA celestial nymph and dancer, born from the churning of the ocean by deva and asura together; a heavenly performer, and in myth the divine beauty sent to break the tapas of dangerously powerful sages.
Where this term appears
- The Artists of the Sky Treatise
The gandharvas, apsaras, kinnaras and vidyadharas are the celestial artists and sky-beings of the Hindu cosmos — the musicians, dancers, singers and magical flyers…
- The Classes of the Gods Treatise
Hinduism did not merely have many gods; it thought of them in classes and collectives from its earliest texts, and this taxonomy is the tradition's own version of…
- The Temple Is a Cosmos Treatise
A Hindu temple is not merely a house for a single deity — it is a scale model of the whole peopled cosmos, and its sculpture is a systematic map of the divine…