Elements of Hindu Iconography v1.c12.2

v1.c12.2

THE following is a summary of the account found in the *Mahābhārata* about Garuḍa, the bird-vehicle of Viṣṇu. Garuḍa was born to Kaśyapa and Vinatā and was the younger brother of Aruṇa, the charioteer of the sun-god Sūrya. When Garuḍa first came out of the egg, the gods mistook him for Agni and praised him and prevailed upon him to diminish his splendour and glory a little. Bearing Aruṇa on his back, Garuḍa went from his father's home to where his mother was, and there learnt that she was held in slavery by his father's other wife Kadrū. The sons of Kadrū who were all snakes promised to free Vinatā, if Garuḍa managed to bring for their use the ambrosia of the gods from their celestial world. Garuḍa started out at once on this mission of securing the ambrosia for his step-brothers, and on his way lived upon the Niṣādas. When he approached the lake called Ālamba, he caught there an elephant named Supratika and a tortoise named Vibhāvasu, and seizing both of them in his talons, he alighted upon a large banyan tree. The branch of the tree could not bear the weight and gave way. On this branch were the *rishis* Vālakhilyas suspended with their head downwards and doing penance. Fearing he would cause the death of these sages, Garuḍa himself held up and carried the branch to the hermitage of his father Kaśyapa. There Kaśyapa exhorted the Vālakhilyas to quit that tree-branch. They quitted it, and Garuḍa then threw down the branch and made a hearty meal of the two animals—the elephant and the tortoise. Then he proceeded to the capital of Indra, the chief of the gods; and after a hard fight there with the appointed guards of the pot of ambrosia succeeded in taking away from their possession the pot of *amṛita*. On the way from the world of the gods he met Viṣṇu, and promised to serve him as his vehicle and also as the device on his banner. Garuḍa thus brought to his step-brothers, the snakes, the pot of ambrosia and placed it on a heap of *kuśa* grass. On seeing this, the snake-sons of Kadrū set Vinatā free, and went to attend to the religious rites preparatory to their partaking of the ambrosia. Meanwhile Indra came and took away his pot of *amṛita*. The snakes returned, and were disappointed at the disappearance of the much coveted pot of ambrosia, and licked the grass upon which that pot had been placed. The sharp edges of the grass cleft their tongues, and the snakes came to possess split tongues. Thereby the kuśa grass also became sacred, because the pot of amṛita was placed upon it by Garuḍa. This mythical kite really represents the sun, and is therefore associated with Viṣṇu, who is a solar god in origin.