Durvasa

Accounts vary. Some Puranic narratives (summarized from Brahmanda Purana material) describe Durvasa as born when a portion of Shiva's anger was deposited into Anasuya, producing a child with an irascible nature; other genealogical listings present him in the lineage of sages (e.g., son of Atri and Anasuya). Thus texts treat him alternately as a semi-divine figure associated with Shiva's anger and as a rishi within human genealogies.

Sources do not supply a sustained iconographic description. Narratives place him in the ascetic/muni context: a traveling rishi who visits hermitages and pilgrim sites and is often accompanied by many disciples (one source mentions 'ten thousand disciples'). Specific clothing, weapons, or distinctive physical markers are not recorded in the provided materials.

Durvasa's principal power is the efficacy of his speech: his blessings and curses have tangible consequences in stories. He famously curses Indra (an act tied in some Puranas to later cosmic events), curses and blesses various mortal protagonists (e.g., Saraswati, Rukmini, Shakuntala, Draupadi, Krishna in narrative episodes), and in certain accounts creates a punitive weapon or being to punish perceived slights (details vary by source). He travels with disciples, is received with reverence by devas and humans, and functions narratively as a tester of hospitality and ritual observance rather than as a routinely coercive master.