Introduction
Apas is one of the eight Vasus, a group of elemental gods who serve Indra. He represents water, and is also called Apa.
The Vasus are a group of eight elemental gods, attendants of Indra. The word vasu means "bright" or "dwelling", and also "wealth". In the Vedic tradition, the eight Vasus are counted in different ways. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad identifies them as Fire, Earth, Wind, Atmosphere, Sun, Sky, Moon and the Stars. In the Puranas and the Mahabharata, the eight are named individually. The Vishnu Purana lists them as Apa, Dhruva, Soma, Dhara, Anila, Anala, Pratyusha and Prabhasa, and the Mahabharata gives nearly the same names. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that among the Vasus he is Pavaka, the fire.
In the Puranic lists
In the Vishnu Purana, Apa is the first of the Vasus, and the Vishnu Purana names his sons as Vaitandya, Shrama, Shanta and Dhvani. The name Apas, meaning the waters, is also the Vedic word for the waters, which are personified as goddesses in the Rigveda (Apah), praised as mothers, purifiers and healers.
The story of the Vasus
In the Mahabharata, the eight Vasus were once travelling with their wives when the wife of one of them, Dyaus (Prabhasa), saw the wish-granting cow Nandini in the hermitage of the sage Vasishtha. She wanted it for a friend, and Prabhasa, with his brothers, stole the cow. Vasishtha discovered the theft and cursed the Vasus to be born as humans. When the Vasus begged for mercy, he said that seven of them would be freed as soon as they were born, but Prabhasa, who had led the theft, would live a long life on earth.
The Vasus asked the river goddess Ganga to be their mother on earth. She married King Shantanu and drowned the first seven sons at birth to free them. The eighth was saved by his father, and became Bhishma.
Worship
The Vasus are not worshipped separately in temples. They are honoured in Vedic ritual as a group, and the eight Vasus receive offerings in some rites, notably in the tarpana offerings to the ancestors, in which the ancestors are said to be in the form of Vasus.