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Derived forms and compounds

• -या

  1. न. त.
  2. Absence of envy, charity of disposition, freedom from spite or illwill; न गुणान् गुणिनो हन्ति स्तौति चान्यगुणानपि । न हसेच्चान्यदो- षांश्च सानसूया प्रकीर्तिता.
  3. Name of a friend of Śakuntalā.
  4. Name of a daughter of Dakṣa.
  5. Name of Atri's wife, the highest type of chastity and wifely devotion. [She was very pious and given to austere devotion by virtue of which she had obtained miraculous powers. Several stories are told o illustrate them. When the earth was devastated by a terrible drought which lasted for 1 years, Anasūyā created water, fruits, roots etc. by means of her ascetic powers and saved many lives. On one occasion when the sage Māṇḍavya was about to be impaled, the wife of a sage happened to touch the stake as she passed by, whereupon Māṇḍavya cursed her that she would become a widow at sunrise. She, however, prevented the sun from rising, and all actions of men being consequently stopped, the gods, sages etc. went to Anasūyā, her friend, who, by the force of her penance, made the sun rise without, at the same time, bringing widowhood on her friend. Another legend is also told in which Anasūyā changed Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśa into infants, when, at the instigation of their wives, they attempted to test her chastity, but restored them to their former shapes at the importunities of their humbled consorts. She is also said to have caused the three-streamed Ganges to flow down on the earth near the hermitage of her husband for the ablutions of sages; see R.13.51. In the Rāmāyaṇa she is represented as having been very kind and attentive to Sītā whom she favoured with sound motherly advice on the virtues of chastity, and at the time of her departure gave her an unguent (See R.12.27,14.14) which was to keep her beautiful for ever and to guard her person from the attempts of rapacious beasts, demons etc. She was the mother of the irascible sage Durvāsas]. सा त्वेवमुक्ता वैदेही त्वनसूयानसूयया Rām.2.18.1.