Brihannala !

Brihannala As portrayed in a recent TV serial

Yeah! You read it right! Today I’m going to tell u story from a great epic mahabharath of Indian mythology!

Whenever it comes to mythologies we must be ready to hear various versions of a single story, being etched around one character. But it doesn’t limit us from believing our most favorite version and sticking to it! 😅😉

Arjun was a legendary warrior from Chandravamsh, third among the five pandavas, dharm son of demigod Indra, well trained in archery. He was a brilliant student right from his childhood, was a favorite disciple of his teacher, guru dhronacharya!

Arjun As portrayed in a recent TV serial

Apart from archery and other warrior skills, Arjun was also an elegant dancer and musician. Bravery of Arjun was exceedingly excellent!

So one day Arjun visited his heavenly father Indra, a demigod himself as well as chief of other demigods, he is said to have a beautiful courtyard in heaven, with beautiful ladies called apsaras entertaining him!

Lord Indra

When his human son Arjun visited his father’s courtyard, Lord Indra wanted to entertain his son who made him extremely proud by his bravery. So he called for a great feast with lots of entertainment like dance, music and what not!? Who knows maybe gods had much more fun than humans in parties! 😇

There is the entry of this celestial beauty, Apsara named Urvashi,(in Sanskrit- she who controls heart) and obviously she would end up being the most beautiful apsara among rest of them, or else she wouldn’t have ended up this famous would she?! OK sorry for deviating! So Urvashi performed her divine dance and enchanted every person with her celestial beauty! Everyone were attracted by her, but she was attracted to our hero the great legendary warrior Arjun! Of course every one would have expected this, as we all have watched enough movies with such romances !

Urvashi

But here comes a twist! After the great feast,when Arjun was resting Urvashi confessed her love towards him, our hero was taken aback! Arjun very obediently said that “My dear lady, I’m exceedingly happy to hear this, but I’m not supposed to love u according to dharma” Now it was Urvashi’s turn to be taken aback, she questioned with great surprise, “Why?”

Arjun explained that, many years back Urvashi had a human husband named Pururuvas, who was the first human being of chandravamsh, thus he becomes Pandava’s ancestor, so according to human beliefs, the celestial apsara Urvashi becomes Arjun’s great great great great grandmother! Nice twist right😅 But Urvashi wanted to persuade Arjun by saying she is not a human, she is not linked to any particular relationship circle with human, she is eternal and pure forever. But Arjun seemed to deny pointing to his Dharma!

Urvashi with her husband Pururuvas

Urvashi the enchanting beauty, being rejected for the first time in her entire immortal life, grew furious and cursed Arjun to become a transgender for rest of his life.

He became very miserable, and when this news reached Lord Indra’s ear, he felt deeply sad as well as surprised by his son. Sad because he couldn’t reverse the curse and surprised by his son’s placement of dharma before love, according to Indra, no human being in his right sense could have rejected or resisted the love of this celestial beauty Urvashi! The most enchanting Apsara!!

His father didn’t want his well mannered son to end up in this miserable state, so he said, he didn’t have power to reverse the curse but he could lessen the adversity of this ! And blessed him saying he could use this curse as a blessing at the time he wants it the most for a temporary period of time.

Thus came the character Brihannala!The dance teacher for princess Uthara of virat kingdom, where he spent his agyathavas(incognito period) where the pandavas along with their wife Draupadi had to live in hiding for one year, after 12 years of vanavas(living in forest) after the infamous disrobing of Draupadi by kauravas! Later his student Uthara was married to Arjun’s son another legendary warrior Abimanyu!

Brihannala teaching Uthara her dance lessons

Thus this is my favorite version of story that revolves around Brihannala, of course there are lot more versions of it but I’ll be happily sticking to this! 😊

I hope u loved this story, I can also tell many other interesting stories from Indian, Greek as well as Roman mythology, if you want me to!

No hate, all love

Yours hyper imaginative honey😂