Elements of Hindu Iconography v2.c16.16

v2.c16.16

∗ In the Aitarēya-brāhmaṇa, Rudra is said to have drunk water (visha, which also means poison). Of the two meanings of the word visha, the latter seems to have given birth to the purāṇic legend of the later period. The statement made in the Brāhmaṇa is a poetic rendering of the physical phenomenon of Rudra, that is, the Sun or the fire drying up water.