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in reply to a message by Agata
I think you mean Chitra Divakaruni.
According to The Penguin Book of Hindu Names by Maneka Gandhi, Tilottama means either "one of the guardians of the sun" or "the best sesamum seed." In Indian legend, the original Tilottama was an apsara (heavenly nymph) created "from small particles of all the best things in the world" and "Shiva developed his four heads and Indra his 1000 eyes in order to see her beauty always."
According to The Penguin Book of Hindu Names by Maneka Gandhi, Tilottama means either "one of the guardians of the sun" or "the best sesamum seed." In Indian legend, the original Tilottama was an apsara (heavenly nymph) created "from small particles of all the best things in the world" and "Shiva developed his four heads and Indra his 1000 eyes in order to see her beauty always."
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Yes! Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - sorry about that. I typed the post rather late last night.
And thank you, I really appreciate your reply!
And thank you, I really appreciate your reply!
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To expand:
The word tila, utimately from a root for anoint which also gives us the common word for oil, means Sesamum Indicum, and figuratively stands for a small amount. uttama from a root meaning on or above is the common word for `best'.
One version of the mythology goes that there were two brothers who were blessed that no one other than themselves could kill each other. They started destroying the world and the Gods were scared. They went to Brahma, and asked him to do something. So, he (or in some versions through an intermediary) took a tila-amount of beauty from everything (conservation laws are so central in these mythologies: so, for example, the moon now has a flaw in its beautiful face), and created this woman. She got her marching (or was it dancing?) orders, and started the traditional demonstration of devotion by circling him (and, in some versions, the assembly of holy gods and men) before taking off, and Shiva (or, in other versions, Brahma) was so enamoured of her beauty that he did not even think of turning, he just kept on creating himself faces to keep her in his vision, and in some versions, Indra developed a thousand eyes to take in her form in its entirety. She did manage to incite fratricidal rage resulting in both brothers ending up dead, and she now hides behind the rays of the sun so as not to destroy the world with her beauty.
tilottama is one of the four most famous apsaras, literally `moving in water', shapeshifting celestial nymphs patterned after clouds, the personifications of sexual desires.
The word tila, utimately from a root for anoint which also gives us the common word for oil, means Sesamum Indicum, and figuratively stands for a small amount. uttama from a root meaning on or above is the common word for `best'.
One version of the mythology goes that there were two brothers who were blessed that no one other than themselves could kill each other. They started destroying the world and the Gods were scared. They went to Brahma, and asked him to do something. So, he (or in some versions through an intermediary) took a tila-amount of beauty from everything (conservation laws are so central in these mythologies: so, for example, the moon now has a flaw in its beautiful face), and created this woman. She got her marching (or was it dancing?) orders, and started the traditional demonstration of devotion by circling him (and, in some versions, the assembly of holy gods and men) before taking off, and Shiva (or, in other versions, Brahma) was so enamoured of her beauty that he did not even think of turning, he just kept on creating himself faces to keep her in his vision, and in some versions, Indra developed a thousand eyes to take in her form in its entirety. She did manage to incite fratricidal rage resulting in both brothers ending up dead, and she now hides behind the rays of the sun so as not to destroy the world with her beauty.
tilottama is one of the four most famous apsaras, literally `moving in water', shapeshifting celestial nymphs patterned after clouds, the personifications of sexual desires.
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Thank you! :)
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