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Other Pictures

These pictures dont really illustrate the physical beauty part of the Apsara. They however point to the presence of Apsara in Indo-China and China.

An apsara from the Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, China.
An apsara relief from Angkor Wat, Cambodia
I'm going to place those photos back into the article so that readers can see what Apsaras from other parts of the World and in different cultures look like. I don't think your reason is good enough to have them taken out. They are depictions of apsaras no matter what. --Hecktor 19:51, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested merge

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I've suggested a merge of Tennin into this article. Please see Talk:Tennin for details. All input is more than welcome, as my knowledge of Buddhism is not very deep. — BrianSmithson 14:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • The merge is disputed at Tennin

Please see the following:

Not Apsara???

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Why should "Apsaras" be singular? The singular form in all other Indian languages (as far as I know) is "Apsara"!! Or at least it is "Apsara" in Indian English (in Amar Chitra Katha comics) and Malayalam (according to the Malayalam-English Nighandu). In Hindustani, it appears to be "apsaraa": in Ankur, Surya complements Lakshmi with the line "Lakshmi, tu aaj aps'raa lagee hai" (translated as "Lakshmi, you look like an angel today").--70.112.164.32 03:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC) Vijay[reply]

Though I don't know any of the Indian languages, I agree. In mythology books, I have always seen the name spelled as "apsara", not "apsaras". Could someone at least provide a linguistic/etymological reason why the spelling with the extra "s" is the correct one on this site? 24.14.198.8 22:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC) Chris G.[reply]
It should be Apsaras, because in Sanskrit, final -s becomes visarga (-h). The singular nominative case is listed as apsarah, but in general singular usage, it should correctly be Apsaras. Listing it as "Apsara" and listing the plural as "Apsaras" demonstrates a lack of Sanskrit knowledge. The singular is in fact Apsaras, and the plurah is Apsarases. Shakta Scholar (talk) 21:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are Apsaras concubines to the gods?

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Hindu gods are married to goddesses, but do apsaras play the role of concubines? In old India, a human noble has a wife & concubines, so perhaps each Hindu god has a goddess & celestial concubines. --DavidErskine02 (talk) 10:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Theme of the Nymph and the Sage

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Changed the ambiguous and unclear phrase "sage and nymph 'sported' together" to "engaged in sex"; please people get over the infantile prudishness, if one can't use a clear term such as coitus or sex in describing one of the most salient aspects of Apsaras then, one shouldn't even bother commenting on this subject; 'Sported' INDEED - unnecessarily ambiguous and unclear (did they play tennis together and thru immaculate conception produce a child? or did they engage in pure and natural coitus; obviously the latter). 70.83.175.116 (talk) 00:16, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Change to Apsaras

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This should be correctly listed as "Apsaras" with English plural as "Apsarases." Sanskritists will agree with this. The current form of "Apsara" is incorrect grammatically. Whomever listed this as "Apsara" and the plural as "Apsaras" has an incorrect grasp of Sanskrit. I have no time to change it at the moment, but someone should undertake this. Shakta Scholar (talk) 21:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]


I'm sure you're right, in terms of the origin of the terms. If so, how should this be done? I think the correct method is to propose to move the article Apsara to Apsaras.
However, this is the English-language Wikipedia. As such, it primarily documents things, concepts, places and people by their English-language names, despite their having foreign origins. For example:
  1. orange (fruit) rather than naranja (fruit) (Spanish), nārang (fruit) (Persian), nāranj (fruit) (Arabic), nāraṅga (fruit) (Sanskrit) or narandam (fruit) (Tamil) — see orange (fruit)#Etymology for details;
  2. justice rather than justitia — which redirects to, and would cause confusion with, Lady Justice;
  3. Hungary rather than Magyarország — which most English speakers haven't heard, can't say and can't type;
  4. Queen Liliʻuokalani rather than Ratu Liliʻuokalani.
So we really need to research the usage, in English, of the terms derived from the Sanskrit "apsaras", to establish what usage is common in English — then go with that. yoyo (talk) 17:56, 2 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Response: It is standard in English language scholarship to use the stem of the Sanskrit word, which in this case is apsaras, not the nominative singular apsarāḥ. Confusion arises from usage in modern Indo-Aryan languages, where the word is apsarā (e.g. Hindi) but also from the fact that in Sanskrit there actually is a by-form apsarā, on which see Wackernagel and Debrunners' Altindische Grammatik III p. 283. It would be better to name this page Apsaras, the most correct English term to refer to the nymphs in Sanskrit literature.

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