Keshav's Painting -20

10 - Bhagavatha -- Nara and Narayana.

The sages Nara and Narayana were the twins born to the god of virtue, Dharma, and the
daughter of Daksha prajapathi, Murthi (ahimsa).
They were unequaled in glory of their austere penance for the welfare of the world at Badrikashrama (Badrinath -- which nestles between the two towering mountains known as Nara and Narayana).
Indra feels threatened.  He sends apsaras (celestial nymphs) to disturb their penance.
Narayana, undaunted, takes a fresh mango leaf and with its juice sketches on his thigh a most
beautiful form of nymph (Urvashi).  The drawing comes alive, her beauty far excelling the
apsaras of Indra. Thus put to shame, the apsaras return to their abode, unable to violate the
sanctity of the sages' austerities. Narayana sends Urvashi (as she was born of his thigh, [ooru])
to Indra along with other apsaras. (There is a small temple for Urvashi on the mountain behind
the Badrinath temple.)
This exposition of the art of painting by Narayana, of the origin of art itself, is narrated in the
Vishnudharmottara Purana, a treatise for the arts.