Book Name:

The Ocean of Story Volume 1

This nectarous tale sprang in old time from the mouth of Siva, set in motion by his love for the daughter of the Himalaya, as the nectar of immortality sprang from the sea when churned by the mountain Mandara. Those who drink eagerly the nectar of this tale have all impediments removed and gain prosperity, and by the favour of Śiva attain, while living upon earth, the high rank of gods.

 

INVOCATION

May the water of Siva’s sweat, fresh from the embrace of Gaurī, [1] which the God of Love when afraid of the fire of Siva’s eye employs as his aqueous weapon, protect you.

Listen to the following tale of the Vidyādharas, which the excellent Gaṇa Puṣpadanta heard on Mount Kailāsa from the god of the matted locks, and which Kāṇabhūti heard on the earth from the same Puṣpadanta after he had become Vararuchi, and which Guṇāḍhya heard from Kāṇabhūti, and Sātavāhana heard from Guṇāḍhya.

 

Story of Udayana, King of Vatsa

[M] There is a land [2] famous under the name of Vatsa, that appears as if it had been made by the Creator as an earthly rival to dash the pride of heaven. In the centre of it is a great city named Kauśāmbī, the favourite dwelling-place of the Goddess of Prosperity; the ear-ornament, so to speak, of the earth. In it dwelt a king named Satānīka, sprung from the Pāṇḍava family; he was the son of Janamejaya, and the grandson of King Parīkṣit, who was the great-grandson of Abhimanyu. The first progenitor of his race was Arjuna, the might of whose strong arm was tested in a struggle with the mighty arms of Siva; [3] his wife was the earth, and also Viṣṇumatī his queen: the first produced jewels, but the second did not produce a son. Once on a time, as that king was roaming about in his passion for the chase, he made acquaintance in the forest with the hermit Sāṇḍilya. That worthy sage, finding out that the king desired a son, came to Kauśāmbī and administered to his queen an artfully prepared oblation [4] consecrated with mystic verses. Then he had a son born to him called Sahasrānīka. And his father was adorned by him as excellence is by modesty. Then in course of time Satānīka made that son crown prince and, though he still enjoyed kingly pleasures, ceased to trouble himself about the cares of government. Then a war arose between the gods and Asuras, and Indra sent Mātali as a messenger to that king begging for aid. Then he committed his son and his kingdom to the care of his principal minister, who was called Yogandhara, and his commander-in-chief, whose name was Supratīka, and went to Indra with Mātali to slay the Asuras in fight. That king, having slain many Asuras, of whom Yamadamṣṭra was the chief, under the eyes of Indra, met death in that very battle. The king’s body was brought back by Mātali, and the queen burnt herself with it, and the royal dignity descended to his son Sahasrānīka. Wonderful to say, when that king ascended his father’s throne the heads of the kings on every side of his dominions were bent down with the weight. Then Indra sent Mātali, and brought to heaven that Sahasrānīka, as being the son of his friend, that he might be present at the great feast which he was holding to celebrate his victory over his foes. There the king saw the gods, attended by their fair ones, sporting in the garden of Nandana, and desiring for himself a suitable wife, fell into low spirits.

Then Indra, perceiving this desire of his, said to him:

“King, away with despondency; this desire of thine shall be accomplished. For there has been born upon the earth one who was long ago ordained a suitable match for thee. For listen to the following history, which I now proceed to relate to thee: –

“Long ago I went to the Court of Brahmā in order to visit him, and a certain Vasu named Vidhūma followed me. While we were there an Apsaras named Alambuṣā came to see Brahmā, and her robe was blown aside by the wind. And the Vasu when he beheld her was overpowered by love, and the Apsaras too had her eyes immediately attracted by his form. The lotus-sprung god [5] when he beheld that looked me full in the face, and I, knowing his meaning, in wrath cursed those two:

‘Be born, you two shameless creatures, into the world of mortals, and there become man and wife.’

That Vasu has been born as thou, Sahasrānīka, the son of Śatānīka, an ornament to the race of the moon. And that Apsaras too has been born in Ayodhyā as the daughter of King Kṛtavarman, Mṛgāvatī by name, she shall be thy wife.”

By these words of Indra the flame of love was fanned in the passionate [6] heart of the king and burst out into full blaze; as a fire when fanned by the wind. Indra then dismissed the king from heaven with all due honour in his own chariot, and he set out with Mātali [7] for his capital.

But as he was starting the Apsaras Tilottamā said to him out of affection:

“King, I have somewhat to say to thee; wait a moment.”

But he, thinking on Mṛgāvatī, went off without hearing what she said; then Tilottamā in her rage cursed him:

“King, thou shalt be separated for fourteen years from her who has so engrossed thy mind that thou dost not hear my speech.”

Now Mātali heard that curse, but the king, yearning for his beloved, did not. In the chariot he went to Kauśāmbī, but in spirit he went to Ayodhyā. Then the king told with longing heart all that he had heard from Indra with reference to Mṛgāvatī to his ministers, Yogandhara and the others; and not being able to endure delay, he sent an ambassador to Ayodhyā to ask her father Kṛtavarman for the hand of that maiden.

And Kṛtavarman having heard from the ambassador his commission, told in his joy the Queen Kalāvatī, and then she said to him:

“King, we ought certainly to give Mṛgāvatī to Sahasrānīka, and, I remember, a certain Brāhman told me this very thing in a dream.”

Then in his delight the king showed to the ambassador Mṛgāvatī’s wonderful skill in dancing, singing and other accomplishments, and her matchless beauty; so the King Kṛtavarman gave to Sahasrānīka that daughter of his who was unequalled as a mine of graceful arts, and who shone like an incarnation of the moon. That marriage of Sahasrānīka and Mṛgāvatī was one in which the good qualities of either party supplemented those of the other, and might be compared to the union of learning and intelligence.

Not long after sons were born to the king’s ministers; Yogandhara had a son born to him named Yaugandharāyaṇa; and Supratīka had a son born to him named Rumaṇvat. And to the king’s master of the revels was born a son named Vasantaka. Then in a few days Mṛgāvatī became slightly pale and promised to bear a child to King Sahasrānīka. And then she asked the king, who was never tired of looking at her, to gratify her longing [8] by filling a tank of blood for her to bathe in.[9] Accordingly the king, who was a righteous man, in order to gratify her desire, had a tank filled with the juice of lac and other red extracts, so that it seemed to be full of blood. And while she was bathing in that lake, and covered with red dye, a bird of the race of Garuḍa [10] suddenly pounced upon her and carried her off, thinking she was raw flesh. As soon as she was carried away in some unknown direction by the bird the king became distracted, and his self-command forsook him as if in order to go in search of her. His heart was so attached to his beloved that it was in very truth carried off by that bird, and thus he fell senseless upon the earth. As soon as he had recovered his senses, Mātali, who had discovered all by his divine power, descended through the air and came where the king was. He consoled the king, and told him the curse of Tilottamā with its destined end, as he had heard it long ago, and then he took his departure.

Then the king, tormented with grief, lamented on this wise:

“Alas, my beloved, that wicked Tilottamā has accomplished her desire.”

But having learned the facts about the curse, and having received advice from his ministers, he managed, though with difficulty, to retain his life through hope of a future reunion.

But that bird which had carried off Mṛgāvatī, as soon as it found out that she was alive, abandoned her, and, as fate would have it, left her on the mountain where the sun rises. And when the bird let her drop and departed, the queen, distracted with grief and fear, saw that she was left unprotected on the slope of a trackless mountain. While she was weeping in the forest, alone, with only one garment to cover her, an enormous serpent rose up and prepared to swallow her. Then she for whom prosperity was reserved in the future was delivered by some heavenly hero who came down and slew the serpent and disappeared almost as soon as he was seen. Thereupon she, longing for death, flung herself down in front of a wild elephant, but even he spared her as if out of compassion. Wonderful was it that even a wild beast did not slay her when she fell in his way! Or rather it was not to be wondered at. What cannot the will of Siva effect?

Then the girl, tardy with the weight of her womb, desiring to hurl herself down from a precipice, and thinking upon that lord of hers, wept aloud; and a hermit’s son, who had wandered there in search of roots and fruits, hearing that, came up, and found her looking like the incarnation of sorrow. And he, after questioning the queen about her adventures, and comforting her as well as he could, with a heart melted with compassion led her off to the hermitage of Jamadagni. There she beheld Jamadagni, looking like the incarnation of comfort, whose brightness so illumined the eastern mountain that it seemed as if the rising sun ever rested on it. When she fell at his feet, that hermit who was kind to all who came to him for help, and possessed heavenly insight, said to her who was tortured with the pain of separation:

“Here there shall be born to thee, my daughter, a son who shall uphold the family of his father, and thou shalt be reunited to thy husband; therefore weep not.”

When that virtuous woman heard that speech of the hermit’s she took up her abode in that hermitage, and entertained hope of a reunion with her beloved. And some days after the blameless one gave birth to a charmingly beautiful son, as association with the good produces good manners.

At that moment a voice was heard from heaven:

“An august king of great renown has been born, Udayana by name, and his son shall be monarch of all the Vidyādharas.”

That voice restored to the heart of Mṛgāvatī joy which she had long forgotten. Gradually that boy grew up to size and strength in that grove of asceticism, accompanied by his own excellent qualities as playmates. And the heroic child had the sacraments appropriate to a member of the warrior caste performed for him by Jamadagni, and was instructed by him in the sciences and the practice of archery. And out of love for him Mṛgāvatī drew off from her own wrist, and placed on his, a bracelet marked with the name of Sahasrānīka.

Then that Udayana, roaming about once upon a time in pursuit of deer, beheld in the forest a snake that had been forcibly captured by a Śavara. [11]

And he, feeling pity for the beautiful snake, said to that Śavara:

“Let go this snake to please me.”

Then that Śavara said:

“My lord, this is my livelihood, for I am a poor man, and I always maintain myself by exhibiting dancing snakes. The snake I previously had having died, I searched through the great wood, and finding this one, overpowered him by charms and captured him.”

When he heard this, the generous Udayana gave that Śavara the bracelet which his mother had bestowed on him, and persuaded him to set the snake at liberty. The Śavara took the bracelet and departed, and then the snake, being pleased with Udayana, bowed before him and said as follows: –

“I am the eldest brother of Vāsuki, [12] called Vasu-nemi: receive from me, whom thou hast preserved, this lute, sweet in the sounding of its strings, divided according to the division of the quarter-tones, and betel leaf, together with the art of weaving unfading garlands and adorning the forehead with marks that never become indistinct.”

Then Udayana, furnished with all these, and dismissed by the snake, returned to the hermitage of Jamadagni, raining nectar, so to speak, into the eyes of his mother. [13]

In the meantime that Śavara who had lighted on this forest, and while roaming about in it had obtained the bracelet from Udayana by the will of fate, was caught attempting to sell this ornament, marked with the king’s name, in the market, and was arrested by the police, and brought up in court before the King. Then King Sahasrā-nīka himself asked him in sorrow whence he had obtained the bracelet. Then that Śavara told him the whole story of his obtaining possession of the bracelet, beginning with his capture of the snake upon the eastern mountain. Hearing that from the Śavara, and beholding that bracelet of his beloved, King Sahasrānīka ascended the swing of doubt.

Then a divine voice from heaven delighted the king, who was tortured with the fire of separation, as do the raindrops the peacock when afflicted with the heat, uttering these words: “Thy curse is at an end, O king, and that wife of thine, Mṛgāvatī, is residing in the hermitage of Jamadagni together with thy son.” Then that day at last came to an end, though being made long by anxious expectation, and on the morrow that King Sahasrānīka, making the Śavara show him the way, set out with his army for that hermitage on the eastern mountain, in order quickly to recover his beloved wife.

Comments:

[1] I.e. Durgā.

[2] At last the Ocean of Story really commences. – n.m.p.

[3] I believe this refers to Arjuna’s combat with the god when he had assumed the form of a Kirāta, or mountaineer. Śiva is here called Tripurāri, the enemy or destroyer of Tripura. Dr Brockhaus renders it quite differently.

[4] Composed of rice, milk, sugar and spices.--For similar child-giving drinks see L. B. Day’s Folk-Tales of Bengal, p. 187, and Knowles’ Folk-Tales of Kashmir, pp. 131 and 416. Cf also the child-giving mango in Freer’s Old Deccan Days, p. 254. – n.m.p.

[5] Brahmā. He emerges from a lotus growing from the navel of Vishnu.

[6] In the word sasnehe there is probably a pun, sneha meaning “love,” and also “oil.”

[7] The charioteer of Indra.

[8] On the curious motif of the longings of pregnancy see Appendix III at the end of the volume. – n.m.p.

[9] For illustrations of this bath of blood see Dunlop’s Liebrecht, p. 135, and the note at the end of the book. The story of “Der arme Heinrich,” to which Liebrecht refers, is to be found in the sixth volume of Simrock’s Deutsche Volksbücher. – Compare also the story of “Amys and Amylion,” Ellis’ Early English Romances, pp. 597, 598; the Pentamerone of Basile (ninth diversion, third day; Burton, vol. ii, p. 318); Prym and Socin’s Syrische Märchen, p. 73; Grohmann’s Sagen aus B'ôhmen, p. 268 ; Gonzenbach’s Sicilianische Märchen, p. 354, with Dr Kohler’s notes; and Schiefner and Ralston’s Tibetan Tales, p. 60 ; Trumbull, in The Blood Covenant, p. 11 6 et seq., notes that the bloodbath was considered a cure for leprosy from ancient Egypt to the Middle Ages. For numerous strange examples see Strack, Das Blut im Glauben und Aberglauben der Menschheit, München, 1900 .

The belief in the magical properties and general potency of blood, both human and animal, is nearly universal. Besides the blood-covenant, the power contained in blood is acquired by drinking, external application, and being baptized in blood. In China charms against disease are written in blood. For full details see H. W. Robinson’s article, “Blood,” in Hastings’ Ency. Rel. Eth., vol. ii, p. 714 et seq.

In German folk-tales (Grimm, Household Tales, i, 396) leprosy is cured by bathing in the blood of innocent maidens. The blood of virgins appears to have been especially potent, for Constantine the Great was advised to bathe in children’s blood to cure a certain complaint, but owing to the parents’ cries he decided not to do it, with the result that he was miraculously cured. Crooke (Folk-Lore of Northern India, vol. ii, pp. 172, 173) relates actual facts to show how largely such beliefs prevail in India:

“In 1870 a Musalmān butcher losing his child was told by a Hindu conjurer that if he washed his wife in the blood of a boy his next infant would be healthy. To ensure this result a child was murdered. A similar case occurred in Muzaffarnagar, where a child was killed and the blood drunk by a barren woman.”

About 1896 at the same locality

“a childless Jāt woman was told that she would attain her desire if she bathed in water mixed with the blood of a Brāhman child. A Hindu coolie at Mauritius bathed in and drank the blood of a girl, thinking that thereby he would be gifted with supernatural powers.” – n.m.p.

[10] See note at the end of this chapter. – n.m.p.

[11] A wild mountaineer. Dr Bühler observes that the names of these tribes are used very vaguely in Sanskrit story-books.

[12] Sovereign of the snakes.

[13] Eastern fiction abounds in stories of grateful and ungrateful snakes. We shall come across more such stories in later volumes of this work. They are usually of Buddhist origin, and we find numerous snake stories in the Jātakas (e.g. “The Saccamkira,” No. 73, which is found in vol. i, p. 177 et seq., of the Cambridge edition). In this story the snake is one of a trio of grateful animals, and presents the hermit with forty crores of gold. See the story of Ārāma 9 obhā and the grateful snake in the Kathākoqa (Tawney’s translation, p. 85 et seq.). In Kaden’s Unter den Olivenbäumen there is a similar snake in the story of “Lichtmess.” Compare the tale of the goldsmith’s adventure with the tiger, the ape and the snake in Katila wa Dimna, and the Pali variant from the “Rasavāhini Jambudīpa” story in The Orientalist for November 1884. In some cases after the man has helped the snake, the latter attempts to bite him, or forces from him some promise of self-sacrifice at a later date.

For examples of such stories see Clouston’s Eastern Romances, p. 231, where in the Tamil Alakēsa Kathā is the story of the “Brāhman and the Rescued Snake.” In this case the snake gives the jewel from its head, which he is bidden to give his wife and then return to be devoured. On the honest man’s returning the snake repents of its ingratitude and gives a second jewel. Compare the famous story of the snake in “Nala and Damayantī.” See also J. Jacob’s Æsop, Ro. ii, 10, p. 40, and his Indian Fairy Tales, pp. 246 and 247.

In the second story of Old Deccan Days (p. 21) a grateful cobra creates a palace twenty-four miles square.

In Arabian fiction we find the grateful snake in the Nights (Burton, vol. i, p. 173; vol. ix, p. 330). In both these stories the snake is rescued from a pursuing dragon. See also Chauvin (op. cit., v, p. 5).

In Europe we find many stories of the grateful snake. In the Bohemian version of M. Leger’s Slav Tales, No. 15, the youngest son befriends a dog, cat and serpent. The latter gives him a magic watch resembling Aladdin’s lamp. In the ninth of M. Dozon’s Contes Albanais the reward is a stone which, when rubbed, summons a black man who grants all desires. In a popular Greek tale in Holin’s collection the reward is a seal ring which, when licked, summons a black man, as in the Albanian story. (See Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, vol. i, pp. 226 , 227, 228, 231, 321-325.)

Finally compare the tale of Guido and the Seneschal, entitled “Of Ingratitude,” in the Gesta Romanorum (Swan’s edition, vol. ii, p. 141, No. 39). – n.m.p.

 

NOTE ON THE GARUDA BIRD

The Garuḍa bird is the vehicle of Viṣṇu. It is described as half-man and half-bird, having the head, wings, beak and talons of an eagle, and human body and limbs, its face being white, its wings red and its body golden.

Garuḍa is the son of one of the daughters of Dakṣa. The account of its miraculous birth and how it became the vehicle of Viṣṇu is given at the beginning of the Mahābhārata (I, xvi). Other adventures in its life, such as the attempt to stop Rāvaṇa from abducting Sītā, are described in the Rāmāyaṇa and the Viṣṇu Purāṇa.

As we shall see in Appendix I, Garuḍa is an enemy of the Nāgas (snakes), and in this connection it is interesting to note that in the well-known story of “Sindbad the Sailor” the roc is represented as attacking gigantic snakes. From Rig-Veda days it is obvious that the sun is meant when reference is made to Garuḍa, and the myth in the Mahābhārata confirms this. Garuḍa also bears the name of Suparṇa, which is a word used for the bird-genii appearing in rock-carvings, etc.

Gigantic birds that feed on raw flesh are mentioned by the Pseudo - CaUisthenes, Book II, chapter xli. Alexander gets on the back of one of them and is carried into the air, guiding his bird by holding a piece of liver in front of it. He is warned by a winged creature in human shape to proceed no farther, and descends again to earth. See also Liebrecht’s Dunlop, p. 143 and note. See also Birlinger, Aus Schwaben, pp. 5, 6, 7. He compares Pacolet’s horse in the story of Valentine and Orson. A Wundervogel is found among nearly every nation. It is best known to Europeans under the form roc, or more correctly rukli, owing to its appearance as such in the second voyage of Sindbad (see Burton’s Nights, vol. vi, pp. 16 , 17 and 49). See Ad-Damīrī’s Ḥayāt al-Ḥauawān (zoological lexicon), trans. by A. Jayakar, 1906, vol. i, pp. 856, 857.

In Persia we find the bird was originally known as amru, or (in the Minōi-Khiradh) sīnamrū, which shakes the fruit from the tree bearing the seed of all things useful to mankind. In later Persian times it is called sīmurgh and becomes the foster-father of Zal, whose son was the Persian hero Rustam (see Sykes’ History of Persia, 2nd edition, 1921 , vol. i, p. 136). The word roc is also Persian and has many meanings, including “cheek” (e.g. Lalla Rookh), “hero” or “soldier,” “tower” or “castle” (hence the piece “rook” in chess), a “rhinoceros,” etc.

In Arabia the bird is called ’anqā (“long-necked”), and has borrowed some of its features from the phænix, that curious bird which Herodotus describes (ii, 73) as coming to Egypt from Arabia every five hundred years. (See Ad-Damīrī, op. cit., vol. ii, part i, p. 401, and the Ency. of Islām, under “ankā.”) Other curious myths connected with the phænix (which has been identified with the stork, heron or egret, called benu by the ancient Egyptians) will be found in Pliny (Nat. Hist., x, 2), Tacitus (Ann., vi, 28) and Physiologus (q.v.). The benu has been found to be merely a symbol of the rising sun, but it hardly seems sufficient to account for the very rare visits of the phænix to Egypt (see article “ Phoenix,” Ency. Brit., vol. xxi, pp. 457, 458).

It is interesting to note that not only the Indian Garuḍa, but also the other great bird (half-eagle and half-lion) of classical antiquity, the griffin, was connected with the sun, and furthermore was a guardian of precious stones, which reminds us of the tales of the rukh whose resting-place is covered with diamonds.

Tracing the huge-bird myth in other lands, we find it as the halthīlinga in Buddhaghosa’s Fables, where it has the strength of five elephants. In a translation of these parables from the Burmese by T. Rogers, which is really a commentary on the Dhammapada, or “Path of Virtue,” we find a story very similar to that in the Ocean of Story. Queen Sāmavati is pregnant, and her husband, King Parantapa, gives her a large red cloak to wear. She goes out wearing this cloak, and just at that moment a hatthīlinga flies down from the sky, and mistaking the queen for a piece of raw meat snatches her up and disappears in the sky again.

This fabulous bird becomes the eorosh of the. Zend, the bar yuclire of the Rabbinical legends, the kargas or kerkes of the Turks, the gryps of the Greeks, and the norka of the Russians (see Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, p. 73, with the numerous bibliographical references on p. 80).

In Japan there is the pheng or kirni, while in China most writers cite the sacred dragon. This, however, seems to me to be quite incongruous. I think the an-si-tsio or Parthian bird is much more likely to be the origin of Chinese bird myths. It is simply the ostrich, which was introduced to the Court of China from Parthia in the second century A.D. (see Hôu-Han-shu, 88, and Hirth, China and Roman Orient, 39).

The Chinese traveller Chau Ju-Kua in his Chu-fan-clū, a work on Chinese and Arab trade of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, speaks of Pi-p’a-lo (i.e. Berbera) as producing the “camel-crane,”

“which measures from the ground to its crown from six to seven feet. It has wings and can fly, but not to any great height.”

For other references to the “camel-bird” see Henri Cordier’s Notes and Addenda to the Book of Ser Marco Polo, 1920, pp. 122, 123.

Many of the encounters with these enormous birds are reported to have been made at sea, usually during a terrific storm, but sometimes in a dead calm. Ibn Batuta gives a description of such an encounter (see Yule and Cordier’s Cathay and the Way Thither, vol. iv, p. 146). All of these stories are now put down to the well-known effects of mirage, abnormal reflection, or water-spouts.

So much for the mythological side of the rukh.

We now turn to the other side – namely, the possibility of the stories of huge birds being founded on fact.

Attention was first drawn to Madagascar as being the possible home of the rukh after the discovery of the great fossil Æpyornis maximus and its enormous egg, a model of which can be seen in the British Museum. The chief investigations were made by Professor G. G. Bianconi of Bologna, a friend of Sir Richard Burton (see the Nights, vol. vi, p. 49). More recently bones of the Harpagornis have been discovered by Dr Haast in New Zealand. This bird must have been of enormous size, as it preyed upon the extinct moa, which itself was at least ten feet high. The work of Professor Owen and

H. G. Seeley (who has recently died) has proved beyond doubt the existence of gigantic birds in comparatively recent times (see Seeley, Dragons of the Air, London, 1901, which contains descriptions of various large pterodactyls).

It is impossible to state with any certainty whether a particular species of bird has died out through the agency of man or through natural causes, except in those few cases where the age of the beds in which the bones have been found is accurately known.

In the last few years a fine specimen of the Diatryma has been described by Matthew and Granger (1917) quite seven feet in height.

In northern Siberia the bones of great pachyderms have implanted a firm belief in the minds of the people of the former existence of birds of colossal size.

Marco Polo describes Madagascar as the home of the rukh, and it was the discovery of the Æpyornis remains in the island which has made the story more credulous. Yule (Marco Polo, vol. ii, pp. 415-421) gives a comprehensive account of the rukh, with a note on “Rue’s quills,” on pp. 596, 597. See also the article in the Dictionary of Birds, 1 893, by Professor Newton. By far the best bibliography on the whole question of these gigantic birds is to be found in Victor Chauvin’s Bibliographie des ouvrages Arabes (a truly marvellous work), Part V, p. 228, under “Le Garouda,” and Part VII, pp. 10-14, where the subject is treated under the headings, “Rokh,” “Garouda,” “Anqâ,” “Sîmourg,” “Griffon,” with a list of general works, including those by Bianconi, on the Æpyornis of Madagascar. For further details concerning the mythical history of Garuḍa see Jarl Charpentier, Die Suparṇasage, Upsala, p. 220 et seq. – n.m.p.

Abstract: