About
Hayashira — Daughter of Vrishaparvan the Danava King, Sister of Sharmishtha and Upadanavi
Hayashira · Hayaśirā · Hayasiras · Vrishaparvan-putri · Danu-pautrī · Sharmishtha-bhagini · Upadanavi-bhagini
Hayashira is the third daughter of Vrishaparvan — the Danava king, son of Kashyapa and Danu — and the sister of Sharmishtha (who became Yayati's secret second wife and the ancestor of the Kuru dynasty) and Upadanavi (who married the king Surodha and bore Dushyanta). Her existence is confirmed in three primary canonical sources — the Vishnu Purana (Book 1, Chapter 21), the Shiva Purana (Chapter 32, Verses 29–30), and the Mahabharata (Adi Parva, Vyasaonline translation) — all of which name Sharmishtha, Upadanavi, and Hayashira together as the three daughters of Vrishaparvan. No primary canonical source records any personal episode of her life, any marriage, any children, or any further personal history. Her canonical record is entirely confined to her genealogical identification as Vrishaparvan's third daughter. The profile is proportionally brief in accordance with the standing instruction of this series that profiles be kept short when information is scarce.
✦ The Name
The Sanskrit name Hayashira — written Hayaśirā or Hayasiras — is a compound of haya (horse) and shira or siras (head). The compound means the horse-headed one, she whose head is like a horse's. The name's unusual character — naming a woman after the head of a horse — may record a specific physical feature, or may be a symbolic name connecting her to the divine horse tradition of the Vedic period. The same compound Hayashiras (the horse-headed one) appears in the tradition as an epithet of Vishnu in his Hayagriva form — the horse-headed avatar who recovered the stolen Vedas. The name Hayashira for Vrishaparvan's daughter does not carry any canonical explanation in the primary sources, and its significance remains opaque.
✦ Lineage
- Father: Vrishaparvan — Danava king; son of Kashyapa and Danu; patron of Shukracharya; profiled separately in this series
- Paternal grandfather: Kashyapa — the universal Prajapati
- Paternal grandmother: Danu — daughter of Daksha; mother of the Danava race
- Elder sisters: Sharmishtha — mother of Puru, ancestor of the Kuru dynasty; and Upadanavi — mother of Dushyanta; both profiled separately in this series
- Husband, children, and personal history: not recorded in any primary canonical source
✦ References
- Vishnu Purana (Book 1, Chapter 21) — the primary canonical genealogical source: Sharmishtha, Upadanavi, and Hayashira named as daughters of Vrishaparvan the Danava
- Shiva Purana (Chapter 32, Verses 29–30) — the parallel Puranic account confirming all three daughters of Vrishaparvan including Hayashira
- Mahabharata (Adi Parva, Vyasaonline translation — the Daksha-progeny section) — Hayashira confirmed as a daughter of Vrishaparvan alongside Sharmishtha and Upadanavi
- Wisdomlib — Vishnu Purana Chapter 21; Vishnu-purana.blogspot — Lineage of Kashyap's Other Wives: modern summaries confirming Hayashira as Vrishaparvan's third daughter