| ENCYCLOPEDIA |
UCHCHAIH-SRAVAS The model horse. The white horse of Indra produced at the churning of the ocean. It is fed on ambrosia, and is held to be the king of horses.
UCHCHHISHTA The remains of a sacrifice, to which divine powers are ascribed by the Rig-veda.
UDAYA-GIRI PARVATA The eastern mountain from behind which the sun rises.
UDAYANA 1. A prince of the Lunar race, and son of Sahas-ranika, who is the hero of a popular story. He was king of Vatsa, and is commonly called Vatsa-raja. His capital was Kausambi Vasava-datta, princess of Ujjayini, saw him in a dream and fen in love with him. He was decoyed to that city, and there kept in captivity by the king, Chandasena; but when he was set at liberty by the minister, he carried off Vasava-datta from her father and a rival suitor. 2. A name of Agastya.
UDDHAVA The friend and counsellor of Krishna. According to some he was Krishna's cousin, being son of Deva- bhaga, the brother of Vasu-deva. He was also called Pavana-vyadhi.
UDGATRI A priest whose duty it is to chaunt the prayers or hymns from the Sama-veda.
UDRANKA Haris-chandra's aerial city. See Saubha.
UGRA A name of Rudra, or of one of his manifestations. See Rudra.
UGRASENA A king of Mathura, husband of Karni, and father of Kansa and Devaka. He was deposed by Kansa, but Krishna, after killing the latter, restored Ugrasena to the throne. See Kansa.
UJJAYANl The Greek originand the modern Oujein or Ujjein. It was the capital of Vikramaditya and one of the seven sacred cities. Hindu geographers calculate their longitude from it, making it their first meridian.
ULUKA ‘An owl’ Son of Kitava. He was king of a country and people of the same name. He was an ally of the Kauravas, and acted as their envoy to the pandavas.
ULUPl A daughter of Kauravya, Raja of the Nagas, with whom Arjuna contracted a kind of marriage. She was nurse to her step-son, Babhru-vahana, and had great influence over him. According to the Vishnu purana she had a son named Iravat.
UMA ‘Light.’ A name of the consort of Siva. The earliest known mention of the name is in the Kena Upanishad, where she appears as a mediatrix between Brahma and the other gods, and seems to be identified with Vach. See Devi.
UMA-PATI ‘Husband of Uma,’ that is to say, Siva.
UPANISHADS ‘Esoteric doctrine.’ The third division of the Vedas attached to the Brahmana portion, and forming part of the Sruti or revealed word. The Upanishads are generally written in prose with interspersed verses, but some are wholly in verse. There are about 150 of these works, probably even more. They are of later date than the Brahmanas, but it is thought that the oldest may date as far back as the sixth century B.C. The object of these treatises is to ascertain the mystic sense of the text of the Veda, and so they enter into such abstruse questions as the origin of the universe, the nature of the deity, the nature of soul, and the connection of mind and matter. Thus they contain the beginnings of that metaphysical inquiry which ended in the full development of Hindu philosophy. The Upanishads have "one remarkable peculiarity, the total absence of any Brahmanical exclusiveness in their doctrine. They are evidently later than the older Sanhitas and Brahmanas, but they breathe an entirely different spirit, a freedom of thought unknown in any earlier work except the Rig-veda hymns themselves. The great teachers of the higher knowledge and Brahmans are continually represented as going to Kshatriya kings to become their pupils."-Professor Cowell. The Rig-veda has the Upanishad called Aitareya attached to the Aitareya Brahmana. The Taittiriya Sanhita of the Yajur has an Upanishad of the same name. The Vajasaneyi Sanhita has the Isa, and attached to the Satapatha Brahmana it has the Brihad Aranyaka, which is the most important of them. The Sama-veda has the Kena and Chhandogya. All these have been translated into English. The Atharva-veda has the Katha, Prasna, Mundaka, Mandukya, and others, altogether fifty-two in number. These are the most important of the Upanishads. Many of the Upanishads have been printed, and several of them translated in the Bibliotheca Indica, and by Poley. There is a catalogue by Muller in the Zeitschrift des D. M. G., voL xix.
UPAPLAVYA Matsya, the capital of the king of Virata.
UPA-PURANAS Secondary or subordinate puranas. See purana.
UPARICHARA A Vasu or demigod, who, according to the Maha-bharata, became king of Chedi by command of Indra. He had five eons by his wife; and by an Apsaras, named Adrika, condemned to live on earth in the form of a fish, he had a son named Matsya (fish), and a daughter, Satya-vati, who was the mother of Vyasa.
UPASRUTI A supernatural voice which is heard at night revealing the secrets of the future.
UPASUNDA A Daitya, Son of Nisunda, brother of Sunda, and father of Muka. See Sunda.
UPA-VEDAS Subordinate or inferior Vedas. These are sciences which have no connection whatever with the Sruti or revealed Veda. They are four in number- (1.) Ayur-veda, medicine; (2.) Gandharva-veda, music and dancing; (3.) Dhanur-veda, archery, military science; (4.) Sthapatya-veda, architecture.
UPENDRA A title given to Krishna by Indra.
URAGAS The Nagas or serpents inhabiting Patala.
URMILA Daughter of Janaka, sister of Sita, wife of Lakshmana, and mother of Gandharvi Somada.
URVA Father of Richika and grandfather of Jamad-agni.
URVASI A celestial nymph, mentioned first in the Rig-veda. The sight of her beauty is said to have caused the generation, in a peculiar way, of the sages Agastya and Vasishtha by Mitra and Varuna. A verse says, “And thou, O Vasishtha, art a son of Mitra and Varuna.” She roused the anger of these two deities and incurred their curse, through which she came to live upon the earth, and became the wife or mistress of Pura-ravas. The story of her amour with Pura-ravas is first told in the Satapatha Brahmana. The loves of Pura-ravas, the Vikrama or hero, and of Urvasi, the nymph, are the subject of Kali dasa's drama called Vikramorvasi. See Puru-ravas.
USANAS 1. The planet Venus or its regent, also called Sukra (q.v.). 2. Author of a Dharma-sastra or law-book.
USHA A Daitya princess, daughter of Bana and grand-daughter of Bali. She is called also Priti-jusha. She fell in love with a prince whom she saw in a dream, and was anxious to know if there were such a person. Her favourite companion, Chitra-lekha, drew the portraits of many gods and men, but Usha's choice fell upon Aniruddha, son of Pradyumna and grandson of Krishna. Chitra-lekha, by her magic power, brought Aniruddha to Usha. Her father, on hearing of the youth's being in the palace, endeavoured to kill him, but he defended himself successfully. Bana, however, kept Aniruddha, “binding him in serpent bonds.” Krishna, Pradyumna, and Bala-rama went to the rescue; and although Bana was supported by Siva and by Skanda, god of war, his party was defeated, and Aniruddha was carried back to Dwaraka with his wife Usha.
USHAS The dawn, the ** of the Greeks and Aurora of the Latins. She is the daughter of heaven and sister of the Adityas. This is one of the most beautiful myths of the Vedas, and is enveloped in poetry. Ushas is the friend of men, she smiles like a young wife, she is the daughter of the sky, she goes w every house, she thinks of the dwellings of men, she does not despise the small or the great, she brings wealth : she is always the same, immortal, divine, age cannot touch her; she is the young goddess, but she makes men grow old. “All this,” adds Max Muller, “may be simply allegorical language. But the transition from Devi, ‘the bright,’ to Devi, the goddess, is so easy; the daughter of the sky assumes so readily the same personality which is given to the sky, Dyaus, her father, that we can only guess whether, in every passage, the poet is speaking of a bright apparition or of a bright goddess, of a natural vision or a visible deity.” She is called Ahana and Dyotana, ‘the illumer.’
USHMAPAS The Pitris or a class of Pitris (q.v.).
USIJ Mentioned in the Rig-veda as the mother of Kakshivat. A female servant of the queen of the Kalinga Raja. The king desired his queen to submit to the embraces of the sage Dirgha-tamas, in order that be might beget a son. The queen substituted her bondmaid Usij. The sage, cognisant of the deception, sanctified Usij, and begat upon her a son, Kakshivat, who, through his affiliation by the king, was a Kshatriya, but, as the son of Dirgha-tamas, was a Brahman. This story is told in the Maha-bharata and some of the Puranas.
UTATHYA A Brahman of the race of Angiras, who married Bhadra, daughter of Soma, a woman of great beauty. The god Varuna, who had formerly been enamoured of her, carried her off from Utathya's hermitage, and would not give her up to Narada, who was Bent to bring her back. Utathya, greatly enraged, drank up all the sea, still Varuna would not let her go. At the desire of Utathya, the lake of Varuna was then dried up and the ocean swept away. The saint then addressed himself to the countries and to the river:- “Saraswati, disappear into the deserts, and let this land, deserted by thee, become impure.” “ After the country had become dried up, Varuna submitted himself to Utathya and brought back Bhadra. The sage was pleased to get back his wife, and released both the world and Varuna from their sufferings.”
UTKALA The modern Orissa. It gives its name to one of the five northern nations of Brahmans. See Brahman.
UTTAMAUJAS A warrior of great strength, and an ally of the pandavas.
UTTANA-PAD ‘Outstretched, supine.’ In the Vedas, a peculiar creative source from which the earth sprang. Supposed to refer to the posture of a woman in parturition.
UTTANA-PADA A son of Manu and Sata-rupa. By his wife Su-nrita he had four sons, Dhruva, Kirtiman, Ayushman, and Vasu. Some of the Puranas gave him another wife, Su-ruchi, and a son, Uttama. See Dhruva.
UTTARA (mas.), UTTARA (fem.) A son and daughter of the Raja of Virata. Uttara was killed in battle by Salya. The daughter married Abhimanyu, son of Arjuna.
UTTARA-KURU A region lying far to the north. (See Jambu-dwipa.) (Plural.) The inhabitants of this region.
UTTARA MIMANSA A school of philosophy. See Darsana.
UTTARA-NAISHADA-CHARITA A poem on the life of Nala, king of Nishada, written about the year 1000 A.D. by Sri Harsha, a celebrated sceptical philosopher. It has been printed in the Bibliotheca Indica.
UTTARA-RAMA-CHARITA ‘The later chronicle of Rama. A drama by Bhava-bhuti on the latter part of Rama's life. The second part of King Rama, as the Maha-vira-charita is the first. The drama is based on the Uttara Ka1uia of the Ramayana, and quotes two or three verses from that poem. It was probably written about the beginning of the eighth century. It has been translated in blank verse by Wilson, and more literally by Professor C. H. Tawney. There are several editions of the text.
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