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The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s3: Garuda

The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s3

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Garuda

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It has already been shown in Chapter X of this book that Garuḍa or Garutmān, the mount of Viṣṇu (in the Sātvata list of the 39 incarnations of the god he appears as Vihaṅgama and Amṛtaharaṇa, the god's 9th and 18th Avatāras; Amṛtaharaṇa may also stand for Indra, for he stole the nectar from the Nāgas) was originally the Sun conceived as a bird. The Ṛgvedic hymn (I. 164, 46) describes the celestial Garutmān as endowed with beautiful wings (divyaḥ sa suparṇo Garutmān). Garuḍa's another name is Tārkṣya in the epic and Purāṇic literature; the latter name, occurring twice in some late verses of the Ṛgveda (I. 89, 6 and X. 178, 1), denotes a horse. In many passages of the Great Epic, Garuḍa is formally identified with the Vedic Garutmān, and is described as the brother of Aruṇa, the forerunner of Sūrya; in the developed mythology of the epic and Purāṇic period, he is the son of the sage Kaśyapa and Vinatā (one of his names is Vainateya), and is thus the half-brother of the Nāgas, sons of Kaśyapa by his other wife. Garuḍa's enmity with the Nāgas is proverbial (he is called bhujagāri, pannagāśana, pannaga-bhojana, etc.), and the texts ascribe it to the ill-treatment of his mother by her co-wife and stepsons. The Mahābhārata (Ādiparva, Chs. 43-50) narrates the story of the stealing of Amṛta or the nectar (Amṛtaharaṇa) by Garuḍa who undertook this task for the Nāgas in order that they would release Vinatā from Kadru's bondage. While on his way to secure the nectar for his half-brothers, he lifted up an elephant named Supratīka and a tortoise called Vibhāvasu with his talons from the lake Ālamba. He later ate up his two prizes, and proceeding to Indra's capital vanquished the divine guards of the nectar and flew with it to the Nāgas. Vinatā was set free as stipulated, but the Nāgas were deprived of Amṛta which was stolen by the crafty Indra in disguise. The tongues of the Nāgas were cleft asunder, and remained so ever afterwards, because they licked up the sharp-edged kuśa grass on which the pot of ambrosia was placed by Garuḍa; this is also the reason why the kuśa grass is so sacred to the Hindus (for various other epic stories about the Sun-bird, refer to Hopkins, Epic Mythology, pp. 21ff.).

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It will be of interest now to study the development of the Garuḍa motif in early Indian art, before its iconographic descriptions in the mediaeval texts are noted, and some mediaeval Garuḍa images are described. In the earliest period he is represented as a huge parrot-like bird with emphasis on some of his physical features. One such extant figure of Garuḍa is carved on the inner side of the middle architrave of the eastern gateway of Sanchi. The entire relief composition here shows the animal world paying homage to Buddha symbolised by the Bodhidruma with Vajrāsana beneath it. It contains, along with animal figures in their natural form, such hybrid figures as lions with the heads of a dog or a bird (griffin). In its right corner is carved a big parrot-like bird with ear-rings and a bushy tuft by the side of a five-headed snake. Grünwedel correctly recognised in these two motifs, Garuḍa and Nāga, and remarked, ‘The native parrot type on the one hand and the west Asian griffin on the other, are the bases upon which modern iconography developed its Garuḍa.’¹ In the Hellenistic art of Gandhāra, Garuḍa appears as a huge eagle decked with the same ear-ornaments, but the wings are treated more naturalistically. He is often depicted as carrying up to the sky a Nāga and a Nāginī either with his long beak, or his big talons. Early Buddhist texts contain stories which are connected with this exploit of Garuḍa (*cf.* the Bauddha drama of Nāgānanda ascribed to king Śrī Harṣa).² The intermediate stage in the evolution of the hybrid Garuḍa figure of mediaeval Indian art from these early forms can be traced with the help of Gupta coins. On most of the gold coins of the imperial Guptas, Garuḍa invariably appears in the form of a plump bird with beautiful wings, as the capital piece of a column (Garuḍadhvaja). Vincent Smith suggested that the Garuḍa of the standard was copied from the Roman eagle; but Allan has rightly observed that there is no reason for this suggestion, and the resemblance is quite a coincidence, and Garuḍadhvajas were common objects in India.¹ On the reverse side of Chandragupta II’s silver coins Garuḍa stands facing with outspread wings as a full-fledged bird, but on some varieties of his copper coins, he is endowed with novel features. Thus on the *Chatra* type (Type No. II) of this Gupta king’s copper issues, he is shown with outspread wings and long human arms adorned with bracelets; on Types V, VI and VII of the same issues, he is figured with outstretched wings, though without human arms, holding a snake in his mouth (*cf.* his epithet *pannagāśana*).² The hybridity in the representation of Garuḍa marked by Type No. II (copper coins) noted above was not emphasised in the other silver and copper coins of this Gupta monarch and his successors, and it was left for the regular iconographers of Brahmanical art to develop the type in the late Gupta and the mediaeval periods. An inscribed terracotta seal of Kumāragupta I found at Nalanda and now in the collection of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, emphasises in a very striking manner the hybridity of the motif. The plump bird stands facing on a sort of pedestal, but it has the face of a man (Pl. XXVIII, Fig. 1).

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¹ Buddhist Art, p. 51. Grünwedel considers the Sanchi motif as a purely Indian one, but observes at the same time that the wings here ‘show the artificial forms of west-Asian art’.

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² Grünwedel thinks that such Hellenistic compositions of Gandhāra as Garuḍa lifting up Nāga youths were direct copies ‘with Buddhist import’ of the ‘Rape of Ganymede’, a famous work of the Hellenistic sculptor Leochares; *Ibid.*, pp. 109-10, Figs. 61, 62. The epic mythology about Garuḍa’s taking off Supratīka and Vibhāvasu, already noted, may have some connection with these Gandhāra reliefs; it is significant that the myth occurs in the Ādiparva, and it may be an interpolation.

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¹ J. Allan, *op. cit.*, Introduction, p. LXX.

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² *Ibid.*, pp. 52 ff. and plates. On type I of the copper coins of Chandragupta II, Garuḍa is nimbate, and on Type V, he is placed on an altar; all these features imply his divine character.

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Textual descriptions of the developed motif may now be noted. The *Śritatvanidhi* and *Śilparatna*, as quoted by Rao, describe a two-armed image of Garuḍa; but the latter text also refers to another variety of Garutmān which is endowed with eight arms, the hands holding such objects as a water-vessel, a mace, a conchshell, a discus, a sword and a snake, the feet of his rider Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa resting on the two front hands; the two-armed image of Garuḍa is designated as Tārkṣya in the *Śilparatna*. The *Agnipurāṇa* (Ch. 49, vv. 19-21) describes the images of Trailokyamohana and Tārkṣya as eight-armed, with *cakra*, *khaḍga*, *muṣala* and *aṅkuśa* in the right hands, and *śaṅkha*, *śārṅga*, *gadā* and *pāśa* in the left; Lakṣmī and Sarasvatī holding *padma* and vīṇā respectively are to be placed on either side of this type of image. The Viṣṇudharmottara enjoins that Tārkṣya should have a nose like the beak of a bird, four arms, a face with round eyes, the breast, knee and legs like those of a vulture, and two wings; his back hands should hold an umbrella and a jar full (of nectar), and his front hands should be in the añjali pose. When lord Viṣṇu is riding on him, the back hands of Garuḍa (or Tārkṣya, as he is named here) instead of holding an umbrella and an ambrosia-pot support the legs of his master; he should be shown slightly pot-bellied (kiñcillambodara) and should be decorated with all ornaments (Book III, Ch. 54, vv. 1-9). It is curious that it is only according to the Śilparatna description of the eight-armed variety of Garuḍa that he holds a snake in one of his hands; the Śrītattvanidhi, however, tells us that his head should be adorned with snakes (mūrdhnā ca phaṇimaṇḍitaḥ), and one of his epithets according to the lexicons is phaṇiphaṇabhṛt (‘holder of the hood of a snake’). The association of Garuḍa with snakes is emphasised in the epic and Purāṇic myths, and is also illustrated in his earlier and mediaeval representations.

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The extant images of Garuḍa of the mediaeval period can be broadly divided into two classes,—one that shows him as Viṣṇu's mount, and the other where the bird-man serves as the capital of a column, or is placed in front of a Vaiṣṇava shrine. In both, the mount and emblem of Viṣṇu is depicted as a round-eyed human being with the wings of a bird and a beak-like nose, and sometimes legs with the claws of a bird; he is usually two-armed, his hands being in the añjali pose. On some late mediaeval sculptures of Eastern India, he is endowed with four arms, the back hands supporting the legs of his lord or those of the divine couple, Lakṣmī and Nārāyaṇa. As the capital of a column he is sometimes depicted as Janiform, the whole figure (not face alone) being double-sided and facing opposite ways. Such figures are two-armed with the hands in the namaskāra mudrā, the eyes and beak as in the other type described above, usual ornaments, elaborate wings, the legs endowed with the claws of a bird, the hair arranged in single coils standing on end on the head. Such a Garuḍa capital in the collection of the Indian Museum is illustrated here; it is in hornblende schist, and is a mediaeval sculpture of Eastern India (Pl. XXVI, Fig. 3). In the elaborate sculpture depicting Viṣṇu Yogāsana in the collection of the Mathura Museum (D. 37) Garuḍa is shown as a standing human being with just a suggestion of tiny wings behind his back, holding a small snake in his hand (cf. his epithet phaṇiphaṇabhṛt already noted). Vogel could not correctly identify the figure in his description of the relief (M.M.C., p. 102), but there is no doubt that it is a graceful representation of Garuḍa of the early mediaeval period with the least element of hybridity in it. The two images of Garuḍa illustrated by Rao (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 287, Pls. LXXXIV and LXXXV, Fig. 1) are interesting; the first of the two, carved on the front gable of Cave No. III at Badami, shows the mythical bird-man with a flabby belly (cf. the textual description kiñcillambodara) holding in his right hand a big snake and flying in the air. The other image from Palur, Travancore, is a 17th century wooden sculpture, a sort of a ceiling piece used to be hung by means of a chain. It illustrates the mythology of the forcible abduction of Vibhāvasu and Supratīka (the elephant and the tortoise) by Garuḍa, already commented on, for it holds the two in his hands. Two elaborately carved panels in Cave No. IV at Badami represent the theft of the jar of ambrosia by Garuḍa, the episode being elaborately described in the Āstikaparvādhyāya of the Ādiparva of the Mahābhārata.¹

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¹ These panels have been fully described by R. D. Banerjee in M.A.S.I., No. 25 (Basreliefs of Badami, p. 46, Pl. XXIII, Figs. (a) and (b); in pages 43-6, he narrates the whole story.

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