Vedic Mythology c7.s2.6

c7.s2.6

B. Tārkṣya. Nearly related to Dadhikrā is Tārkṣya, whose name is mentioned only twice in the RV. (1, 89⁶; 10, 178¹). One late hymn, consisting of three stanzas (10, 178), is devoted to his praise. He is there described as a god-impelled mighty steed (*vājin*), a vanquisher of chariots (cp. 6, 44⁴), swift, and speeding to battle. He is invoked as a gift of Indra. In the identical words applied to Dadhikrā (4, 38¹⁰), he is said to have pervaded the five tribes with his power, as Sūrya the waters with his light. That he was primarily conceived as a steed is shown (v. ²; 1, 89⁶) by his epithet *ariṣṭanemi*, ‘whose fellies are intact’ (which in VS. 15, 18 appears as an independent name beside Tārkṣya and Garuḍa). In the Naighaṇṭuka (1, 14) the word *tārkṣya* occurs as a synonym of ‘horse’. In one or two later Vedic texts Tārkṣya is, however, referred to as a bird; and in the Epic and subsequent literature, he is identical with the swift bird Garuḍa, the vehicle of Viṣṇu. It seems on the whole probable that Tārkṣya originally represented the sun in the form of a divine steed¹⁰. The word seems to be derived from Tṛkṣi, the name of a man, with the patronymic Trāsadasyava, once mentioned in the RV. (8, 22⁷). This derivation leads Foy¹¹ to believe that Tārkṣya was an actual race horse (like Dadhikrā), belonging to Tṛkṣi of the family of Trasadasyu.