Table Of Content1
Ascensio ad Deum: Garuḍa and Onto-Theologic Praxis in the Mahābhārata
Paper presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religions
Chicago, November 17, 2012
Vishwa Adluri
Hunter College, NY
[email protected]
A. Introduction:
A version of the Ṛgvedic myth (RV 4.26-27) of the theft of soma is found in the
Mahābhārata at 1.23-30. In the epic version, the falcon or eagle is referred to as
“garutmān” or “garuḍa”1 rather than “śyená/ suparṇá” as in the RV, and the epic also
expands greatly on the bird’s motivation for stealing the elixir of the gods.2 This
episode has been studied for clues to the myth of the Indo-European firebird3 and the
significance of Vedic soma,4 but here I propose an alternative perspective: I look at the
epic’s reworking of the myth as a theological trope, carefully articulated to function
within the architecture of the epic’s literary and philosophical project. This project, I
will argue, concerns a saving ontology.5 I will demonstrate that Garuḍa functions as a
1 But see 1.20.15, 21.5, 23.1, 23.6, 29.8, 29.21, 30.14, 30.21, and 32.25 for references to “suparṇa.” In general,
the epic seems to distinguish between “suparṇa” or “pakṣi” as generic terms for “bird” and
2 The epic refers to the elixir as soma (1.25.7; 1.26.36, 37, 38; 1.28.3; 1.29.3, 9; 1.30.7, 8, 13, 18, 19) and, less
often, as amṛta (1.24.1; 1.29.2; 1.29.14, 17; 1.30.15, 17).
3 Typical of this early approach are Adalbert Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gottertranks: ein Beitrag
zur vergleichenden Mythologie der Indogermanen (Berlin: F. Dümler, 1859); Jarl Charpentier, Die Suparṇasage
(Uppsala: A.-B. Akademiska Bokhandeln, 1920); Rudolf Wittkower, “Eagle and Serpent. A Study in the
Migration of Symbols,” Journal of the Warburg Institute 2.4 (1939): 293-325; and Wilhelm Printz, “Garuḍa
und der egyptische Greif,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 86 (1933): 111-112. More
recently, David Knipe has reexamined some of these parallels in his “The Heroic Theft: Myths from
Ṛgveda IV and the Ancient Near East,” History of Religions 6 (1966-67): 328-360 but Knipe frames his
analysis in terms of wider cosmological concerns.
4 Bloomfield (Maurice Bloomfield, “Contributions to the Interpretation of the Veda” (I. The legend of
Soma and the Eagle),” Journal of the American Oriental Society 16 [1894-96]: 1-24), Oldenberg (Hermann
Oldenberg, “Das altindische Ākhyâna, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das Suparṇâkhyâna,” Zeitschrift der
Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft [1883]: 54-86), Schneider (Ulrich Schneider, Der Somaraub des Manu.
Mythus and Ritual [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1971]), and Feller (Danielle Feller, “The Theft of the Soma,”
in Composing a Tradition: Concepts, Techniques and Relationships, ed. Mary Brockington and Peter Schreiner
[Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 1999], 199-225) are mainly concerned with the
comparisons between epic and Vedic versions, and with the Suparṇākhyāna of the Rāmāyaṇa. Simson,
continuing his approach to the epic as a work of nature symbolism, proposes an idiosyncratic reading of
the narrative, according to which the tortoise and elephant of the myth symbolize the sun and the moon,
with their conflict standing in for the waxing and waning cycles of the moon; see his “Remarks on the
Suparṇa/Garuḍa Myth (Later Vedic Period),” Indologica Taurinensia 15–16 (1989–1990): 353–360.
5 Scholars have hitherto seldom considered the epic a work of theology. With the exception of a handful
of scholars such as Biardeau and her students, the predominant method of inquiry has not been to
carefully follow appropriate hermeneutics, such as Nīlakaṇṭha. Instead, academic scholars have valorized
the text-historical method, which functions precisely by ignoring philosophical and theological
meanings. Thus expulsion of the theological philosophical was raised to a methodological principle. And
yet, when we look at the Mahābhārata with unprejudiced eyes, the epic is the most obvious place to look
for the development of Hindu theology. Although the Vedas precede and outweigh the epic in scriptural
and epistemic significance and the Purāṇas and Āgamas may be much more relevant for sectarian
2
metaphor for the soul and that the epic uses the metaphor of the flight of the avian
soul to articulate its ideas of salvation. The Garuḍa narrative, first of the ascent
narratives of the epic, is thus crucial to understanding the epic’s status both as a work
that address the goal of mokṣa,6 final liberation, and as the earliest philosophical
exposition of bhakti, the “principal—and undoubtedly the most ancient—of all
monuments to bhakti,” as Biardeau calls it.7
B. Garuḍa in the Mahābhārata :
The Garuḍa narrative occurs within the Ādiparvan, the first major book of the
Mahābhārata. The first five books of the Ādiparvan contain hermeneutic and pedagogic
materials that teach the reader how to read the epic.8 The Garuḍa narrative occurs as
part of these materials in the epic’s fifth minor book, the Āstīkaparvan. Following the
narratives of the first four minor books, which successively set up the basic problem to
the epic as the relation of time to eternity,9 introduce the sacrificial nature of
“becoming,” and make a distinction between temporal resurrection and true
ontological salvation,10 the Garuḍa narrative clarifies essential aspects of the nature and
meaning of salvation in the epic.
The story, recounted at Mahābhārata 1.23-30, describes the flight of the fiery bird
(agnisamaprabhaḥ, 1.28.3a) to obtain the elixir of the gods. Garuḍa’s ascent to heaven—
and, beyond it, to the Supreme Being—begins with a simple problem: the fact of
bondage. His mother Vinatā, whose name links her to the sky, once lost a wager to her
sister Kadrū, the earth, and was forced to become her slave.11 Long ago, sage Kaśyapa
had offered the two sisters boons. Kadrū asked for a thousand sons, while Vinatā asked
for two sons who would exceed Kadrū’s sons in beauty, brilliance, and might. Kadrū’s
thousand eggs hatch after five hundred years, giving birth to the snakes. At this,
worship, the epic occupies a key role in the development of classical Hinduism. The Sanskrit epics and
Purāṇas, as Biardeau first perceived, undertake “a re-reading of the Revelation which [gives] birth to a
mythic and ritual universe of very great complexity.” Madeleine Biardeau, Hinduism: the Anthropology of a
Civilisation, trans. Richard Nice (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), 90. In this re-reading, the
Mahābhārata takes on a key role. Thus an engagement with the Indian epic becomes unavoidable in the
attempt to understand the basic elements of Hindu theology.
6 The epic twice lists mokṣa among the puruṣārthas about which the Mahābhārata is a śāstra, see 1.56.21c
and 33a.
7 Biardeau, Hinduism, 170, n. 1.
8 See my “Frame Narratives and Forked Beginnings: Or, How to Read the Adiparvan,” Journal of Vaishnava
Studies 19.2 (2011): 143-210.
9 For the contrast between time and eternity as the epic’s basic theme, see Mahābhārata 1.1.187-190 and
1.1.191, 193-195.
10 For a discussion of the last two of these themes, see Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, “From Poetic
Immortality to Salvation: Ruru and Orpheus in Indic and Greek Myth,” History of Religions 51.3 (2012): 239-
261.
11 According to Winternitz, Kadrū, the “tawny one,” is a reference to the earth, while Vinatā, the “curved
one,” refers to “the arc of heaven [Himmelsgewölbe] as the mother of birds and of the sun-bird Garuḍa in
particular.” Moritz Winternitz, “Das Schlangenopfer des Mahābhārata,” in Kleine Schriften, part 1, ed.
Horst Brinkhaus (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1991), 72, n. 1. TS 6.1.6 confirms this interpretation,
because Kadrū is there referred to as “this [earth],” Suparṇī as “yonder [heaven].” Suparṇi, “beautiful
leaf” or “having beautiful feathers,” (Monier-Williams, s.v. “suparṇī”) is the name of the mother of the
meters who sends them to heaven to fetch the soma in TS 6.1.6, MS 3.7.3, and KS 23.10. She is an early
precursor of Vinatā.
3
Vinatā, her judgment clouded by greed (lobhaparītayā, 1.14.17a),12 broke open one of her
eggs. A half-formed being called Aruṇa emerged from the egg and cursed his mother to
become the slave of the woman she sought to rival.13 He promises that her second son
shall deliver her from, but she must allow her second egg to ripen and hatch in due
course of time (1.14).
Kadrū indeed succeeds in enslaving her sister by means of a ruse: the two sisters
wager on the color of the tail of the horse Uccaiḥśravas but Kadrū forces her sons to
weave themselves into the tail so that it appears black (1.18-1.20). Five hundred years
later, the second egg hatches and a great bird whose radiance surpasses Agni’s emerges
(1.20). Garuḍa flies to his mother and joins her in servitude, carrying Kadrū and her
sons from pleasure island to pleasure island.14 The snakes, denizens of “becoming,” are
captives not only to pleasure, but also cursed to perish in a great sacrifice at the end of
the eon. Garuḍa, however, longs for release from this life of bondage. He flies upward
towards the sun in an attempt to burn the snakes, but their mother Kadrū invokes
Indra with verses and he sends cooling rain showers for their salvation. When the
snakes ask Garuḍa to carry them to yet another island, he approaches his mother in
grief and asks why he must obey them. She explains that the snakes tricked her, and he
asks them what he can do to obtain freedom. The snakes ask for amṛta (1.23.12a) in
return for his mother’s and his freedom. Thus begins his ascent.
Before he flies off to the stronghold of the gods, Garuḍa approaches his mother for
food and she advises him to eat the Niṣādas, eaters of fish, who dwell by a bay. The
great bird sweeps down on the hapless fisher-folk and devours them by the thousands
(1.24). But when a Brahmin and his wife enter his throat by accident, he permits them
to leave. Still hungry, he flies on and espies his father Kaśyapa, who tells him to eat a
giant elephant and a giant tortoise engaged in a fratricidal conflict in a lake.15 The eagle
seizes the creatures and alights on the branch of a giant banyan, but the branch shears
off under his weight (1.25). Seeing the diminutive sages the Vālakhilyas hanging upside
down from the branch, he carries it back to his father. At Kaśyapa’s request the sages
abandon the branch, and Garuḍa lets go off it in an uninhabited mountainous region.
12 “Lobha” has the meanings of “perplexity, confusion, impatience, eager desire for or longing after” and
of “covetousness, cupidity, avarice” (Monier-Williams, s.v. “lobha”). Van Buitenen translates as “[falling]
prey to your greed.” Although plausible in context, this translation covers over the more fundamental
point that Vinatā falls victim to delusion.
13 śarīreṇāsamagro ’dya tasmād dāsī bhaviṣyasi /
pañca varṣaśatāny asyā yayā vispardhase saha, 1.14.17c-18a.
14 The island is called the lovely Ramaṇīyaka island (suramyaṁ ramaṇīyakam), dwelling place of the snakes
(nāgānām ālayaṁ, 1.21.4a). But no sooner do they arrive there, then the snakes ask Garuḍa to take them to
yet another lovely island (aparaṁ dvīpaṁ suramyaṁ, 1.23.7a). The theme of a maximization of pleasure
plays a major role in the narrative, with the snakes desire for soma and the immortality it confers
standing in stark contrast to the eagle’s detachment.
15 The conflict between the Kauravas and their Pāṇḍava cousins should be read not only in light of the
rivalry between the snakes and their cousin, Garuḍa, but also in light of that between these two large
animals. Supratīka and Vibhāvasu (the elephant and the tortoise) are brothers who quarrel over their
inheritance. Thus even before the opening of the Kuru narrative, the Ādiparvan heralds a constellation
of themes such as conflict, greed, envy and the destructive potential inherent to “becoming.” Like the
hundred Kauravas, the snakes are more numerous than the birds: plurality or multiplicity is here
contrasted to singularity, and the rare nature of the one who seeks refuge in “being” (cp. Bhagavadgītā
7.3: manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaś cid yatati siddhaye / yatatām api siddhānāṁ kaś cin māṁ vetti tattvataḥ) to the
masses who seek satisfaction in sensory gratification.
4
After eating the elephant and tortoise, he flies off to the gods from a mountain top
(1.26).
Viśvakarman the foremost protector of the soma attacks him, but the great eagle
fights back and succeeds in defeating him. He then whips up a great dust storm with his
wings. Vāyu, the wind god, blows strongly and dispels the storm cloud. The gods attack
Garuḍa, but he routs them all. Raging like Rudra at the end of Time (yugāntakāle
saṁkruddhaḥ pinākīva mahābalaḥ, 1.28.20), he lays low the armies of the gods. He
encounters vast fields of fire everywhere, but puts out the fires with water from the
rivers (1.28). Finally, he makes his body microscopic (saṁkṣipyāṅgaṁ, 1.29.4c) and,
spinning in time to the dread cutting wheel guarding the soma, passes through its
spokes. Defeating the two serpent guardians of the nectar, he seizes the pot of amṛta.
The great bird then shatters16 the wheel and, enveloping the amṛta “without drinking
it” (apītvaivāmṛtaṁ, 1.29.11), turns home.
The Supreme Being Viṣṇu encounters the eagle as he returns. Pleased with the
even nature of his actions (tuṣṭas tenālaulyena karmaṇā, 1.29.12),17 he offers him a boon.
The bird asks for two gifts: that he always be above the god and that he be immortal
even without the aid of nectar (ajaraś cāmaraś ca syām amṛtena vināpy aham, 1.29.14).
When Viṣṇu grants him his wish, he offers the god a boon in return. Viṣṇu chooses him
for his mount (vāhanaṁ, 1.29.16). Garuḍa continues his flight, but is attacked by Indra
with his thunderbolt. At this he laughingly lets go a feather out of respect for sage
Dadhīci. Awed by his power, Indra asks for eternal friendship, which the bird grants
him. In return Garuḍa asks that the snakes be his natural food. They then make a
compact, whereby Garuḍa will set down the soma on the ground before the Snakes, but
Indra will recover it before they can taste it, thus preserving the supremacy of the gods.
C. Interpretive Principles:
In my interpretation, I will rely on three main methodological tenets:
1. The Mahābhārata is a whole;
2. Its meaning is deeply implicated in its architecture;
3. The Ādiparvan, the first book of the epic, is the key to reading the epic as a whole.
1. The Mahābhārata is a whole:
Following Biardeau’s insight into the unity of the epic,18 I read the Mahābhārata as a
whole. With the completion of the Critical Edition (CE) text, which aims to reconstruct
16 Van Buitenen translates “unmathya” as “shattering,” but the word actually means “to shake up,
disturb” or “to excite” or “act violently.” The root “manth” also occurs in the churning of the ocean
episode (1.15.13c, 1.16.12a, and 116.29c, also see 1.35.3c) in which the gods and titans together churned
the great ocean to obtain the amṛta contained in its depths. Thus we should note carefully the resonances
of unmathya with this earlier episode. Garuḍa is not merely stealing the amṛta; he is, in a manner of
speaking, undoing the foundational event that led to its emergence or availability. His superb flight
represents a transcendence of amṛta at its very source in intellectual cogitation.
17 Van Buitenen translates “even tenor of his course,” which obscures the significance of karmaṇa. It is
not the evenness of Garuḍa’s flight that is intended here, but the equanimity accompanying his actions.
“Karmaṇā” therefore should be taken in the strictly literal sense of referring to Garuḍa’s actions in not
drinking the soma and, by implication, not coveting the immortality it confers on the drinker.
18 See her series of articles titled “Études de mythologie Hindoue: Cosmogonies purāniques” originally
published in three parts in Bulletin de l’École Française de Extrême Orient (1968, 69, 71) and since reprinted in
5
“the oldest form of the text which it is possible to reach, on the basis of the manuscript material
available,”19 we now possess the Mahābhārata in its inceptive and exceptional form.
Thus this version will form the textual basis for my analysis.
2. The epic’s meaning is deeply implicated in its architecture:
The CE demonstrates that the eighteen-parvan architecture is a major feature of the
epic,20 coming to rival and replace the hundred-parvan list in significance.21 Within this
architecture, three sections are especially relevant for my analysis:
(i) The Ādiparvan, which contains hermeneutic keys to reading the text as a whole;
(ii) The Bhagavadgītā, an eighteen-chapter text placed one-third way of the way into
the epic in Book Six, which answers the question of how to live in pravṛtti;
(iii) The Nārāyaṇīya, another eighteen-chapter text placed two-thirds of the way into
the epic in Book Twelve, which outlines the question of nivṛtti.
I will consider the theological program of the epic via reference to these three sections.
3. The Ādiparvan, the first book of the epic, is the key to reading the epic as a whole:
The Garuḍa narrative occurs within the front-end materials of the Ādiparvan and thus
comprises part of the hermeneutic and pedagogic apparatus to the text. It therefore
should be closely studied for clues to the epic’s literary and philosophical project. The
old Vedic tale of Suparṇa attains new configurations as part of this formulation of an
ontological pedagogy and soteriology in the epic. I will focus on two main points in my
interpretation of the narrative: (i) Garuḍa as soul, and (ii) The dynamics of ascent.
One final point needs to be mentioned. Although my interpretation is based on the CE
text, the Garuḍa narrative is attested to in all witness texts. It is thus a central and
enduring feature of the Mahābhārata manuscript tradition. The variations between the
different recensions are minor. The main features of this story, i.e., bondage to the
revised form in Études de mythologie hindoue, vol. 1: Cosmogonies purāniques (Paris: Ecole Française
d’Extrême Orient, 1981). I discuss the merits of Biardeau’s approach in “Philosophical Aspects of Bhakti in
the Nārāyaṇīya,” in Papers of the 15th World Sanskrit Conference, ed. Alf Hiltebeitel (Delhi: Rashtriya Sanskrit
Sansthan, forthcoming).
19 V.S. Sukthankar, “Prolegomena,” in V.S. Sukthankar, ed., The Ādiparvan for the First Time Critically Edited
(Pune: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933), lxxxvi.
20 This is true only of the northern mss. The southern mss. are unanimous in reading twenty four parvans;
see Sukthankar, “Prolegomena,” xxxiii. However, this feature truly does seem to be canonical of the text.
Although the oldest extant parvan list of the Mahābhārata is fragmentary and hence incomplete, it also
suggests a total of eighteen parvans, though the figure may be longer (it is impossible to make a final
determination, since we do not know the dimensions of the palm leaf on which the list is found).
Schlingloff thinks there were two more names below the last preserved one, making a total of eighteen,
although he concedes there might have been more than two; Dieter Schlingloff, “The Oldest Extant
Parvan-List of the Mahābhārata,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 89.2 (1969): 335 and n. 5. John
Brockington is more diffident, see his “The Spitzer Manuscript and the Mahābhārata,” in From Turfan to
Ajanta: Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday, ed. Eli Franco and Monika Zin
(Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2010), 84.
21 Sukthankar considers the longer list to be older; see V.S. Sukthankar, “Epic Studies I. Some Aspects of
the Mahabhdrata Canon,” in Sukthankar Memorial Edition, vol. 1, Critical Studies in the Mahabharata, ed.
S.M. Katre (Bombay: Karnatak Publishing House, 1944), 202.
6
snakes, ascent to fetch soma, and exchange of boons with Viṣṇu are found in all
recensions. Although there are frequent interpolations, these are mostly of a few lines.
The northern mss. contain many more interpolations than the southern; these
interpolations are usually shorter and are not shared across larger manuscript groups,
suggesting that they are in the nature of scribal additions. In contrast, the
interpolations in the southern mss. are longer and often common to the recension as a
whole, attesting the better-preserved nature of the text in the south—a fact Sukthankar
already remarked upon in his “Prolegomena” to the Ādiparvan CE.22
D. The Avian Soul:
In this section, I will examine the textual evidence for considering Garuḍa as the soul,
both within Indic sources such as Vedas and the Upaniṣads and in the epic.23 Although
earlier scholarship focused mainly on Garuḍa as the Indo-European firebird, there is
much more reason to look at Garuḍa as a metaphor for the soul. In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka
Up. Bhujyu, the grandson of Lahya, asks Yājñavalkya: where have the sons of Parikṣit
gone? The sage answers that they have gone where the sacrificers of aśvamedha go. His
exact answer is as follows:
Thirty-two times the space covered by the sun’s chariot in a day makes this world; around
it, covering twice the area, is the earth; around the earth, covering twice the area, is the
ocean. Now, as is the edge of a razor, or the wing of a fly, so is there just that much opening
22 “It should thus seem that the infidelities of the Southern recension are confined mainly to a tendency
to inflation and elaboration. In parts unaffected by this tendency, it is likely to prove, on the whole,
purer, more conservative and more archaic than even the best Northern version. The Southern variants,
therefore, deserve the closest attention and most sympathetic study.” Sukthankar, “Prolegomena,” xlvi-
ii.
23 The association of the soul with a winged creature is not a feature of Indian texts alone. The Greek
tradition frequently uses the image of the winged soul. Plato in the Phaedrus describes the ascent of the
winged soul, born aloft on the wings of eros. This work was to be enormously influential on the Middle
Platonists. Commentators in late antiquity such as Iamblichus and Syrianus (Iamblichus’ commentary
has not survived. The main source of information on it is Hermias’ commentary on the same work. From
this work, we know that Syrianus lectured on the text and the Proclus and Hermeias both attended these
lectures. Hermeias’ commentary is based on notes of these lectures) and in the Renaissance such as
Ficino all took the myth seriously. In his commentary on the Phaedrus, Syrianus’ student Hermias
portrays Socrates as a divine messenger, sent down to aid souls to make the philosophic ascent (In. Phdr.
1,1-5). Hermias also connected Plato’s metaphor of the soul as a chariot with Parmenides’ chariot (In.
Phdr. 122,19-21). Although neither the chariot nor the horses are referred to as winged here, the youth
mounted on the chariot does undertake an ascent beyond the gates of Justice to the realm of an unnamed
Goddess. Even though Plato gives explicit content and structure to the idea of the winged soul, the
notion does not originate with him. Harrison presents many examples from Greek funerary art that show
that the soul was conceived of as a small winged creature (see Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegemona to the
Study of Greek Religion [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903]). Rohde in his classic work on Greek
beliefs on the soul comments that Attic oil-flasks illustrate the belief in the soul as “hovering” over the
site of their cult, “for they represent the souls of the dead flying above their grave-monument.” “The
diminutive size of these winged figures is evidently intended to represent their somewhat contradictory
immaterial materiality, and to express their invisibility to mortal eyes. Sometimes, indeed, the souls
become visible, and then, like the underworld gods and the Heroes, they prefer the shape of a snake.”
Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks (London: Routledge,
1925), 170. Finally in Near Eastern literature as well, soul is often described in avian terms. In Egyptian
literature, the double soul Ka and Ba are represented as birds and in The Epic of Gilgamesh all souls become
feathered beings residing in the Underworld.
7
at the junction (of the two halves of the cosmic shell). (Through that they go out.) Fire, in
the form of a falcon [suparṇa], delivered them to the air; the air, putting them in itself, took
them to where the (previous) performers of the horse sacrifice were.24
Muṇḍaka Up. (3.1.1-2) and Śvetasvatāra Up. (4.6-7) also speak of the soul as a bird. In a
famous allegory, the relationship of the individual soul to God is conceived of as that of
two birds (dvā suparṇā) seated on a tree.25 Whereas the first bird enjoys the fruit of the
tree, the other merely looks on. Deluded by her who is not the Lord,26 the individual
soul (puruṣa) experiences grief, but when it gazes upon the Lord (īśa) or the Person
(puruṣa), it attains identity with him. For Śaṁkara, this absolute identity (paramam
sāmyam) consists in the realization of non-duality (i.e., of the soul and God).
Other texts more often use the term “haṁsa,” swan or goose, for the soul. Haṁsa in
the Upaniṣads occurs at: Chāndogya Up. 4.1.2, 4.7.1-3, 4.8.1, Κaṭha Up. 5.2, Śvetāśvatara
1.6, 3.18, and 6.15, Maitrī Up. 6.8, 7.7, Mahānārāyaṇa Up. 9.3, 17.8, and the less well-
known Haṁsa Up. 1 and 2. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Up. 2.5.18 refers to a “bird” (pakṣī). Ekahaṁsa
(“goose”) occurs at Bṛhadāraṇyaka Up. 4.3.11-12.27 The word “haṁsa” does not occur in
the Bhagavadgītā. However in the chapter on Kṛṣṇa’s vibhūtis in the Bhagavadgītā,
Kṛṣṇa says that among birds, he is the son of Vinatā, i.e., Garuḍa (’haṁ vainateyaś ca
pakṣiṇām, Bhagavadgītā 10.30). Finally, both Ānandagiri and Śaṁkara read pakṣaḥ at
Taittirīya Up. 2.1.1, 2.2.1, 2.3.1 and 2.4.1 in the sense of “wing” and interpret the
description of the prāṇamaya, manomaya, vijñānamaya, and ānandamaya kośas in these
verses as a eulogy and comparison of the four sheaths or the four “selves” with a bird.
In the epic as well, the avian metaphor plays a major role in narratives of the soul. I
will focus here on four main instances. The first concerns Vyāsa’s son Śuka, the
ultimate paradigm of ascent to liberation in the epic. Śuka, whose name means
“parrot,”28 is the first of Vyāsa’s pupils to attain mokṣa. The narrative of his mokṣa
ascent constitutes a major portion of the Mokṣadharmaparvan (12.310-320). In 12.319,
Śuka begins his journey to emancipation, flying like Garuḍa (tam udyantaṃ dvijaśreṣṭhaṃ
vainateyasamadyutim, 12.319.11ab).29 The motif of flight not only recalls Garuḍa’s ascent
24 The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad: With the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya, trans. Swami Madhavananda
(Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1975).
25 Śaṁkara in his commentary on the text interprets the tree as the body on account of the body’s “being
demolished like a tree.” He further identifies the tree with the inverted banyan of the Bhagavadgītā
(15.1) and the Kaṭha Up. (2.3.1). Śaṁkara identifies the “Umanifested (Māyā)” as the “material cause” of
the tree. The tree “sprouts up” from this material cause, and forms “a support for the karmas of all
beings.” In his commentary, he writes “God and the soul—[the latter] as conditioned by the subtle body
which holds in itself the tendencies and impressions created by ignorance, desire, and action—cling to it
like birds.” Swāmī Gambhīrānanda, trans. Eight Upaniṣads: With the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya, vol. 2
(Kolkatta: Advaita Ashrama, 2006).
26 Olivelle’s translation; Olivelle translates “anīśayā” as “not the Lord”; the implied reference would then
be to Prakṛti or to Māyā. Gambhīrānanda, following Śaṁkara’s commentary, translates “by its
impotence,” implying that it is the soul’s lack of control, possession, dominion, etc. that troubles it.
27 Olivelle translates ekahaṁsa as “goose,” although it can also have the meaning “the single destroyer of
intelligence” (Monier-Williams, s.v. “ekahaṁsa”), i.e., a reference to the Puruṣa (this is how Swami
Madhavānanda takes it, see his translation of the text cited above).
28 Monier-Williams, s.v. “śuka.”
29 The appearance of Garuḍa in the Śāntiparvan is quite infrequent, yet significant. He appears in
unrelated passages in the Śāntiparvan in the form of “Tārkṣya” at 12.43.8, 12.46.34, and 12.48.14. But in
the forms of “Garut-” and “Vainateya,” he appears only in the Mokṣadharmaparvan, and only in the Śuka
and Nārāyaṇīya narratives. In the form of “Suparṇa” he appears in three scattered references (12.37.18,
8
in the Āstīkaparvan (1.20–30), but also the idea of “being seen” by all beings: “As that
best of twice-born ones, endowed with radiance equal to Garuḍa, was ascending in the
skies with the speed of the wind or thought, all creatures gazed up at him.”30 In 12.320,
Bhīṣma describes how Śuka, casting off the three guṇas, became established in
Brahman, blazing like a smokeless fire.31 We learn how he dashed against the twin
peaks of Meru and Himavat, and how, splitting the peaks, he flew up to his ultimate
goal.32 Bhīṣma sums up the story of Śuka with the following words: “That person
devoted to tranquility who hears this sacred history directly connected with the topic
of Emancipation is certain to attain to the highest end.”33
Śuka’s flight in turn sets up three other flights in the concluding sections of the
Mokṣadharmaparvan: (i) Nārada’s flight to the mystic isle Śvetadvīpa; (ii) king Vasu’s
flight to Nārāyaṇa’s abode (nārāyaṇapadaṁ, 12.323.56c) born aloft on the wings of
Garuḍa; and (iii) the flight of an unnamed uñcha brāhmaṇa in the book’s concluding
Uñchavṛtty-Upākhyāna who shoots up straight into the sun. Even though these beings
are not referred to as winged, it is clear that the flight of the bird constitutes a basic
trope for salvation in the epic.34 Each of these narratives in some way recalls Garuḍa’s
12.47.28, and 12.52.31). However, most significantly, Garuḍa also appears as “Suparṇa” once within the
Mokṣadharmaparvan, as Bhīṣma is expounding on the marks of future greatness and degeneration in a
chapter (12.221) exactly a hundred chapters before the Nārāyaṇīya. This chapter marks a critical
juncture: it is the end of the first segment of ascent, which is dominated by Indra, and the beginning of
the second segment, in which Nārada will be the chief character who slowly traces that journey to the
ultimate goal represented in the Nārāyaṇīya. These two segments relate to each other as the pravṛtti
ascent or the “first transcendence” to the nivṛtti ascent (the “second transcendence”), as I have argued in
my article “The Vasu Narratives of the Mahābhārata: Some Lexical and Textual Issues,” paper presented
at the Sixth Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas, August 2011.
Whereas the first transcendence culminates in attaining Indra’s heaven, the second leads beyond it to
brahman (which in the epic is often associated with Viṣṇu). In the present passage, the limits of the first
transcendence are indicated by Bali’s words to Indra in the Bali–Vāsava-Saṁvāda: Bali tells Indra that
many thousands of Indras have passed away before him and that he, too, will one day be destroyed by
Time (bahūnīndrasahasrāṇi samatītāni vāsava ǀ balavīryopapannāni yathaiva tvaṁ śacīpate, 12.217.54).
Thereafter, Śrī is introduced. At this juncture of the “going down of Indra” and the “rising up of Nārada,”
both of these figures go to bathe in the Ganges, which has issued out of “Dhruva” (dhruvadvārabhavāṃ,
12.221.6). They see the same Śrī, now no longer shining in the temporal cycles of Indras, but appearing in
the direction opposite to the day-star as a ‘second sun’, mounted on Garuḍa (ākāśe dadṛśe jyotir
udyatārciḥsamaprabham // tayoḥ samīpaṃ saṃprāptaṃ pratyadṛśyata bhārata / tat suparṇārkacaritam āsthitaṃ
vaiṣṇavaṃ padam / bhābhir apratimaṃ bhāti trailokyam avabhāsayat, 12.221.11c–12). Garuḍa here must
signify the vaiṣṇavaṃ padam or the soteriological goal.
30 tam udyantaṃ dvijaśreṣṭhaṃ vainateyasamadyutim /
dadṛśuḥ sarvabhūtāni manomārutaraṃhasam, 12.319.11.
31 brahmaṇi pratyatiṣṭhat sa vidhūmo ’gnir iva jvalan, 12.320.3cd.
32 Recall that Garuḍa’s flight to the soma was also launched from a mountain, albeit an unnamed one. In
the Nārāyaṇīya, the motif of the launch of the mokṣa ascent from a mountain returns: the final stage of
sage Nārada’s journey to view the one is launched from mount Meru.
33 itihāsam imaṃ puṇyaṃ mokṣadharmārthasaṃhitam /
dhārayed yaḥ śamaparaḥ sa gacchet paramāṃ gatim, 12.320.41.
34 Soul in the Mahābhārata is a complex topic. To my knowledge, there have been no in-depth studies of
the subject, perhaps due in part to the prejudice that the epic does not have a single, consistent doctrine
of the soul. I have here used the term somewhat generically, but it would be useful to continue
exploration of the topic along a continuum of terms that articulate the conception of soul in the epic,
especially as it unfolds and develops along this continuum. Potential candidates would include dehin, jīva,
kṣetrajña, and ultimately ātman. Each of these occupies a highly specific place in the epic’s psychology.
9
flight not only through the basic paradigm of ascent, but also through specific motifs
such as the launch of the journey from a mountain, the rejection of Indra and his
heavenly boons, or the significance of tapas in enabling this supernal ascent. In the next
two sections, I will expand on the last two points, which enable us to understand how
the epic conceives of the nivṛtti goal of salvation vis-à-vis pravṛtti.
E. Garuḍa’s Ascent:
In the preceding section, we saw how Garuḍa’s ascent to fetch soma is articulated as a
series of smaller ascents, each fuelled by food (the Niṣādas, elephant and tortoise). Let
us examine the structure of these ascents more closely:
1. The story of liberation: Garuḍa is born into servitude along with his mother
Vinatā.35 The very reason given for his birth is to liberate Vinatā.36 In doing so,
he also shatters the wheel of pain that separates mortals from the pot of
immortality.
2. Liberation occurs through the structural motif of an ascent. This ascent begins
on a mountain.
3. The liberation epanodos includes two segments: one to Indra’s heaven to steal
amṛta, and another to a height beyond Viṣṇu. Let us call these two ascents the
“Indra segment” and “Viṣṇu segment” respectively.
4. These two ascents are related to each other as a series, not as parallel
alternatives.
5. A tree and a flagpole are closely associated with these two ascents.
6. The tree, associated with Indra,37 turns out to be an unsteady support, and
Garuḍa is forced to discard it. Viṣṇu’s flagpole, in turn, is achieved through
equanimity which impresses Viṣṇu.
Together, they articulate the semantic field of soul concepts in the epic, a field that is less a theoretical
issue than it is a pedagogical concern. For example, in the Bhagavadgītā the first “soul-word” introduced
is dehin (2.13a, 22c, and 30a). But as Arjuna’s understanding matures, Kṛṣṇa successively introduces more
terms for soul, with something of a development away from reified concepts of soul to a noetic soul (the
kṣetrajña, which occupies an entire chapter, chapter 13, towards the book’s end, seems to be the highest
concept of soul; it appears as e a precursor to sākṣin, the notion that is to be so important for later
Vedānta). Each of these terms refer to “soul” via invoking the singularity of existence, but I would argue
that they differ in the way they invoke this singularity, which they trace in its arc from contingency to
ultimacy. Minoru Hara’s “Ātman in the Bhagavadgītā as Interpreted by Śaṅkara,” in Composing A Tradition:
Concepts, Techniques and Relationships, ed. Mary Brockington & Peter Schreiner (Zagreb: Croatian Academy
of Sciences and Arts, 1999), 67-90 contains useful albeit preliminary material on the study of “soul” in the
epic.
35 It is initially not clear that Garuḍa is also a slave to the snakes. At Mahābhārata 1.18.4c, when Kadrū
first proposes a wager, she only mentions that the loser shall be the winner’s servant (dāsī). And at
1.21.5c, Garuḍa is said to carry the snakes at his mother’s bidding (mātur vacanacoditaḥ). But at 1.23.8a, he
does ask Vinatā why he must obey their every word (kiṁ kāraṇaṁ mayā mātaḥ kartavyaṁ sarpabhāṣitam),
and when he approaches them at 1.23.10-11, he asks what it is he must do so that he be freed from being
bound to them (kim āhṛtya viditvā vā kiṁ vā kṛtveha pauruṣam / dāsyād vo vipramucyeyaṁ, 1.23.11).
36 See Aruṇa’s prophecy to his mother (eṣa ca tvāṁ suto mātar dāsyatvān mokṣayiṣyati, 1.14.18c). Garuḍa also
mentions that his flight is undertaken “for the sake of saving his mother from bondage” (mātur
dāsyavimokṣārtham, 1.25.7c) in his speech to Kaśyapa.
37 Indra is associated with a seasonal festival of renewal that involved the setting up of Indra-poles.
Mahābhārata 1.57 contains the earliest reference to such a custom; Indra is said to have presented Vasu a
bamboo=pole (yaṣṭiṁ ca vaiṇavīṁ, 1.57.17a) which the king erected in his honor. See my paper “The Vasu
10
7. The Viṣṇu segment is achieved by forsaking the Indra segment. Garuḍa
explicitly asks for immortality without the aid of amṛta. No one is saved by
Indra or by amṛta in this narrative.
8. The Indra segment is antagonistic to ṛṣis who practice tapas.38 Indra mocks
them but they best him by creating Garuḍa. The antagonism reveals a deep
divide, that of pravṛtti and nivṛtti.
9. Pravṛtti in the Mahābhārata is conceived of in terms of four genera: sacrifice,
cosmology, genealogy, and war. Garuḍa’s flight is associated with transcending
all four of these genera.39
10. Indra’s sovereignty is one of pravṛtti, powered by sacrifice and vulnerable to
fall. Such a sacrifice is the pravṛtti-powering sacrifice.
11. Garuḍa’s attainment to a region above Viṣṇu is a different kind of
achievement. It is one of nivṛtti.
12. In order to proceed on the path of nivṛtti, Garuḍa must overcome the four
genera of “becoming”: sacrifice, cosmology, genealogy and war.
13. Garuḍa represents a different kind of sacrifice,40 a non-Agni, i.e., a non-pravṛtti
sacrifice. Let us call it nivṛtti-conducive sacrifice, identifiable both with the
tapas of the Vālakhilyas and with Garuḍa’s equanimity.
14. The Indra segment also prominently features a friendship: Indra seeks out
Garuḍa’s friendship.
15. The Viṣṇu segment leaves the Indra segment intact. Indra is not unseated; his
claim to the immortality of amṛta is challenged but not toppled.
Let us now draw some conclusions. The Garuḍa narrative sets up a constellation of
motifs, arranged according to a division of pravṛtti and nivṛtti, which are conceived of as
two ascents, or more precisely, two segments of an ascent. Pravṛtti is lorded over by
Indra, while Viṣṇu is the figure representing nivṛtti. But these two ontological topoi, one
of “becoming” and another of “being,” are not merely descriptive. There is a value
attached to them. Becoming is necessary and painful, but not absolute. Being is
available and desired, but requires ontological effort, an ascent beyond the four genera
Narratives of the Ādiparvan and the Nārāyaṇīya” for a discussion as well as a bibliography of the main
literature on the subject.
38 Indra once mocked the Vālakhilyas, tiny thumb-sized sages, as they struggled to carry a leaf for
sacrifice and came to grief in a puddle of water that had collected in the depression made by a cow’s
hoof. Incensed the sages undertook a great sacrifice to create a second Indra to overthrow the king of the
gods. Indra appealed to the Cosmocrator Kaśyapa for aid, and the sage asked the ascetics to spare the
divine sovereign. They consented and offered him the fruit of the sacrifice (saphalaṁ karma, 1.27.23),
which he presented to his wife Vinatā. From this was born in due course, Garuḍa, whose might rivaled
Indra’s and who was to become an Indra of the birds. Kaśyapa’s diversion of the fruit of action from the
pravṛtti goals of sovereignty and power to the nivṛtti goal of dispassion heralds or possibly recalls the
main teachings of the Bhagavadgītā.
39 As Garuḍa successively feeds on the Niṣadas, tortoise and elephant, he becomes the “eater of food” (cf.
Taittirīya Up. 3.1.3. to 3.10.1-2). Śaṁkara in his commentary on the Brahma Sūtra presents a rigorous
argument for why the eater of food can be none other than the “highest Self,” i.e., Brahman alone.
40 This reinterpretation of sacrifice also includes the highest dharma of the Mahābhārata: ānṛśaṁsāya or
“non-cruelty” as Hiltebeitel translates it (see his Rethinking the Mahābhārata: A Reader’s Guide to the
Education of the Dharma King [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001], passim). I discuss the way the
epic uses sacrifice to negotiate between the categories of violence and non-violence in my article
“Literary Violence and Literaral Salvation: Śaunaka interprets the Mahābhārata,” Exemplar: The Journal of
South Asian Studies 1 (2012): 45-68.
