The apsaras are cursed by a sage for tempting him
Arrogant with youth and beauty, a group of apsaras attempts to seduce a sage deep in austerities. His anger is immediate, but his curse contains a strange mercy: they will become crocodiles, but only until a supreme man comes to pull them from the water.
They were apsaras — celestial dancers, beings of perfect form and irresistible allure. Youth and beauty made them arrogant. The god of love, Kama, stirred their pride until they believed they could tempt anyone, even a sage whose power was built on self-control.
They found him in his hermitage, a brahmana engaged in rigid vows and austerities, a man who never decayed. They approached him with their charms on display, a direct assault on his penance.
The sage’s anger was instant. He pronounced a curse: for their transgression, they would become crocodiles. They would live in the water, seizing and dragging men down, for a hundred years.
The apsaras were shattered. Their arrogance vanished, replaced by terror. They fell at his feet and sought refuge. “The god of love made us arrogant,” they pleaded. “We did what should not be done. Please forgive us. That we came to tempt a self-controlled one like you is death enough for us.” They argued from dharma (cosmic law): those who know dharma hold that women should not be slain. A brahmana is a friend to all beings. The good protect those who seek refuge. “We have sought refuge with you. You should therefore forgive us.”
Their words, full of remorse and scriptural reasoning, reached him. The brahmana, a performer of good deeds with dharma in his soul, was pacified. His radiance, which had blazed with anger, softened like the sun and moon.
He did not revoke the curse. But he tempered it. “The word ‘hundred’ I used should be understood as a limited period, not as eternity,” he clarified. “Becoming crocodiles, you will seize and drag men down into the water. But a supreme man will drag you out of the water and onto land and you will then regain your earlier forms.” He bound his own promise with his truthfulness: “Never before have I uttered a falsehood, not even in jest.”
Then he made a final pronouncement about the place itself. “From now on, all these tirthas (sacred fords) will be famous everywhere as the tirthas of women. Those who are learned will know them to be sacred and the cleansers of all sins.”
The curse was fixed. The apsaras paid their homages, circumambulated the sage, and left in misery, their celestial forms already fading, their minds fixed on a single, distant hope: when would they meet the man who could return them to themselves?