Mandakarni's Five-Apsara Lake

Classical

The lake is named after a sage's five wives.

Rama, Sita and Lakshmana are walking through the Dandaka forest in the order that has become familiar: Rama in front, Sita in the middle, Lakshmana behind with his bow. The translator's commentary reads the three of them as the letters of the syllable Om. They pass mountain terraces, forests and rivers, water birds, lakes full of lotuses, spotted deer, boars, buffaloes and elephants.

As the sun sinks in the west they come to a lovely lake about a yojana across, crowded with lotuses, elephants, swans and kadamba birds. And from the water comes music, singing and instruments, though there is no one to be seen. Rama and Lakshmana are amazed. They ask the sage Dharmabhrita, where the sound is coming from.

He tells them that this is Panchapsara, the Five-Apsara Lake, a lake that has been there for all time, made by a sage called Mandakarni through his austerity. Mandakarni had lived on nothing but air, standing in the water for ten thousand years.

The gods, led by Agni, became afraid. They thought Mandakarni might be after their positions. So they sent five apsaras to break his penance. They succeeded. The five became his wives, and he built them a house hidden beneath the lake. There, the apsaras keep him young and content, and the music of their instruments and the sound of their ornaments can be heard from the water. Rama listens, amazed.

That is the whole story, and it is told in a few lines. What makes it worth telling is where it comes in the epic. Valmiki puts it right after Rama has begun his long wandering among the hermitages of the Dandaka forest, a moment when the story is slowing down and taking in the country. The lake is a piece of local lore that a guide shares with a traveler at the end of the day. It is the Ramayana's version of a tour: here is a place, here is who made it, here is why it sings.

It also shows a pattern the epic uses often. In the story of Vishvamitra and Menaka, as told earlier by Shataananda, an apsara is sent to break an ascetic's concentration, and the ascetic falls. Here the same device appears with five apsaras and a different sage, and the penance is not broken in shame and followed by new austerity. It ends in a settled life under the water, which is a more peaceful ending than Vishvamitra's.

After the lake, the story moves on quickly. Rama and his companions enter a group of hermitages and are honored by the sages, and they tour them one by one, staying anywhere from four months to a year. The text says ten years pass altogether, though the translator notes that the month counts do not obviously add up. Rama then returns to the hermitage of Sutikshna and says he has heard a great deal about Agastya but does not know where he lives. Sutikshna, pleased, says he was about to suggest the same, and gives directions: go south, spend a night at the hermitage of Agastya's brother, and go one more yojana to Agastya's own.

On the road, Rama tells of the demon brothers Ilvala and Vataapi, who killed Brahmins by feeding them Vataapi in the shape of a ram, and of how Agastya ate Vataapi, mocked Ilvala, and burned him to ashes with his gaze. The story of the Five-Apsara Lake sits just before that, a quiet, strange chapter in a forest full of dangers.

Who: Mandakarni, five apsaras

Bound to

Vishvamitra and Menaka; Rambha sent by Indra mirror

Agastya digests Vatapi; Vindhya lowered located-at

Places: Panchapsara lake

Where this comes from

valmiki · Valmiki Ramayana, Aranya Kanda (valmikiramayan.net translation) sarga 11
read for this telling · valmikiramayan.net Valmiki Ramayana Aranya Kanda sarga 11

See it on the tree · All stories

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