and an immortal bride, and a promise of reconciliation.

The story, of which this Vedic poem is a partial dramatisation, is given
in the Brahmana of the Yajur Veda.  Mr. Max Muller has translated the
passage. {66a}  According to the Brahmana, 'Urvasi, a kind of fairy, fell
in love with Pururavas, and when she met him she said: Embrace me three
times a day, but never against my will, and let me never see you without
your royal garments, _for this is the manner of women_.' {66b}  The
Gandharvas, a spiritual race, kinsmen of Urvasi, thought she had lingered
too long among men.  They therefore plotted some way of parting her from
Pururavas.  Her covenant with her lord declared that she was never to see
him naked.  If that compact were broken she would be compelled to leave
him.  To make Pururavas break this compact the Gandharvas stole a lamb
from beside Urvasi's bed: Pururavas sprang up to rescue the lamb, and, in
a flash of lightning, Urvasi saw him naked, contrary to the _manner of
women_.  She vanished.  He sought her long, and at last came to a lake
where she and her fairy friends were playing _in the shape of birds_.
Urvasi saw Pururavas, revealed herself to him, and, according to the
Brahmana, part of the strange Vedic dialogue was now spoken.  Urvasi
promised to meet him on the last night of the year: a son was to be the
result of the interview.  Next day, her kinsfolk, the Gandharvas, offered
Pururavas the wish of his heart.  He wished to be one of them.  They then
initiated him into the mode of kindling a certain sacred fire, after
which he became immortal and dwelt among the Gandharvas.

It is highly characteristic of the Indian mind that the story should be
thus worked into connection with ritual.  In the same way the Bhagavata
Purana has a long, silly, and rather obscene narrative about the
sacrifice offered by Pururavas, and the new kind of sacred fire.  Much
the same ritual tale is found in the Vishnu Purana (iv. 6, 19).

Before attempting to offer our own theory of the legend, we must examine
the explanations presented by scholars.  The philological method of
dealing with myths is well known.  The hypothesis is that the names in a
myth are 'stubborn things,' and that, as the whole narrative has probably
arisen from forgetfulness of the meaning of language, the secret of a
myth must be sought in analysis of the proper names of the persons.  On
this principle Mr. Max Muller interprets the myth of Urvasi and
Pururavas, their loves, separation, and reunion.  Mr. Muller says that
the story 'expresses the identity of the morning dawn and the evening
twilight.' {68}  To prove this, the names are analysed.  It is Mr.
Muller's object to show that though, even in the Veda, Urvasi and
Pururavas are names of persons, they were originally 'appellations'; and
that Urvasi meant 'dawn,' and Pururavas 'sun.'  Mr. Muller's opinion as
to the etymological sense of the names would be thought decisive,
naturally, by lay readers, if an opposite opinion were not held by that
other great philologist and comparative mythologist, Adalbert Kuhn.
Admitting that 'the etymology of Urvasi is difficult,' Mr. Muller derives
it from 'uru, wide ([Greek]), and a root as = to pervade.'  Now the dawn
is 'widely pervading,' and has, in Sanskrit, the epithet uruki,
'far-going.'  Mr. Muller next assumes that 'Eurykyde,' 'Eurynome,'
'Eurydike,' and other heroic Greek female names, are 'names of the dawn';
but this, it must be said, is merely an assumption of his school.  The
main point of the argument is that Urvasi means 'far-going,' and that
'the far and wide splendour of dawn' is often spoken of in the Veda.
'However, the best proof that Urvasi was the dawn is the legend told of
her and of her love to Pururavas, a story that is true only of the sun
and the dawn' (i. 407).

We shall presently see that a similar story is told of persons in whom
the dawn can scarcely be recognised, so that 'the best proof' is not very
good.

The name of Pururavas, again, is 'an appropriate name for a solar hero.'
. . .  Pururavas meant the same as [Greek], 'endowed with much light,'
for, though rava is generally used of sound, yet the root ru, which means
originally 'to cry,' is also applied to colour, in the sense of a loud or
crying colour, that is, red. {69a}  Violet also, according to Sir G. W.
Cox, {69b} is a loud or crying colour.  'The word ([Greek]), as applied
to colour, is traced by Professor Max Muller to the root i, as denoting a
"crying hue," that is, a loud colour.'  It is interesting to learn that
our Aryan fathers spoke of 'loud colours,' and were so sensitive as to
think violet 'loud.'  Besides, Pururavas calls himself Vasistha, which,
as we know, is a name of the sun; and if he is called Aido, the son of
Ida, the same name is elsewhere given {69c} to Agni, the fire.  'The
conclusion of the argument is that antiquity spoke of the naked sun, and
of the chaste dawn hiding her face when she had seen her husband.  Yet
she says she will come again.  And after the sun has travelled through
the world in search of his beloved, when he comes to the threshold of
Death and is going to end his solitary life, she appears again, in the
gloaming, the same as the dawn, as Eos in Homer, begins and ends the day,
and she carries him away to the golden seats of the Immortals.' {69d}

Kuhn objects to all this explanation, partly on what we think the
inadequate ground that there is no necessary connection between the story
of Urvasi (thus interpreted) and the ritual of sacred fire-lighting.
Connections of that sort were easily invented at random by the compilers
of the Brahmanas in their existing form.  Coming to the analysis of
names, Kuhn finds in Urvasi 'a weakening of Urvanki (uru + anc), like
yuvaca from yuvanka, Latin juvencus . . . the accent is of no decisive
weight.'  Kuhn will not be convinced that Pururavas is the sun, and is
unmoved by the ingenious theory of 'a crying colour,' denoted by his
name, and the inference, supported by such words as rufus, that crying
colours are red, and therefore appropriate names of the red sun.  The
connection between Pururavas and Agni, fire, is what appeals to Kuhn--and,
in short, where Mr. Muller sees a myth of sun and dawn, Kuhn recognises a
fire-myth.  Roth, again (whose own name means _red_), far from thinking
that Urvasi is 'the chaste dawn,' interprets her name as die geile, that
is, 'lecherous, lascivious, lewd, wanton, obscene'; while Pururavas, as
'the Roarer,' suggests 'the Bull in rut.'  In accordance with these views