The Gandharva is heavenly and dwells in the high region of the sky; he is a measurer of space and is closely connected with the sun, the sun-bird, and the sun-steed, while in one passage he is possibly identified with the rainbow. He is also associated with the soma; he guards its place and protects the races of the gods. It is in this capacity, it would seem, that he appears as an enemy whom Indra pierces, just as in the Avesta the Gandarewa, dwelling in the sea Vourukasha, the abode of the White Haoma, battles with and is overcome by Keresāspa.[1] From another point of view Soma is said to be the Gandharva of the waters, and the Gandharva and the Maiden of the Waters are claimed as the parents of Yama and Yamī, the first pair on earth. So, too, the Gandharva is the beloved of the Apsaras, whence he is associated with the wedding ceremony and in the first days of marriage is a rival of the husband.
The Gandharva has brilliant weapons and fragrant garments, while the Gandharvas are described as wind-haired, so that it has been suggested that the Gandharvas are the spirits of the wind, closely connected with the souls of the dead and the Greek Centaurs, with whose name (in defiance of philology) their name is identified. Yet there is no sufficient ground to justify this hypothesis or any of the other divergent views which see in the Gandharva the rainbow, or the rising sun or the moon, or the spirit of the clouds, or Soma (which he guards).
The companion of the Gandharva, the Apsaras, is likewise an obscure figure, though the name denotes "moving in the waters," and the original conception may well be that of a water-nymph, whence the mingling of the water with the soma is described as the flowing to Soma of the Apsarases of the ocean. Of one, Urvaśī, we have the record that she was the mother of the sage Vasiṣṭha, to whose family are ascribed the hymns of the seventh book of the Ṛgveda, and an obscure hymn (x. 95) contains a dialogue between her and her earthly lover Purūravas, whom she seems to have forsaken after spending
- ↑ See infra, pp. 325-26.
