UNDERSTANDING THE DEEP SEATED MEANING OF GARUD- THE MYSTIC BIRD OF PURANIC STORIES

Garud a huge and a strong bird (falcon eagle hybrid) with large feathers has a special name in the Puranic stories including Ramayana and Mahabharata. Let us understand his story in brief and then we shall discuss the deep-seated meaning of this character. But to begin with, let us understand the story of Sage Kashyap who had 13 wives who were also the daughters of Daksh Prajapati (we have already discussed Daksh’s story in the previous volume). Kashyap also means turtle and is well known that part of human brain looks like turtle. One of his wives was Aditi (means boundless)- the mother of Devas, another Diti (means limited)- the mother of Asuras, another Kadru- the mother of serpents and the fourth was Vinita (means noble)– the mother of Aruna and Garud. Story has it that when Rishi Durvasa gifted a blessed garland (blessed by Shiva) to Indra and Indra out of his inflated ego of thinking that he doesn’t need any help/blessing, threw it towards his elephant (Eravat), then Rishi Durvasa cursed Indra to lose all his Vaibhav (richness, power, luxury, majesty, dignity, eminence).

Subsequently Indra lost all his dignity and Asuras began to rise. This also resulted in Devi Laxmi (resources) leaving Lord Vishnu and going back into the ocean thereby pushing Vishnu to get into a deep state of meditation. This gave rise to evil forces. During all this, Kadru asked Rishi Kashyap to grant him 1000 children who will be strong and rule the world with the philosophy that only the mighty and cruel is the winner whereas Vinita asked her husband to grant her two children who are good natured and spread health and happiness in this world. Hence Kadru gave birth to serpents named Vasuki, Sheshnaag, Kalia, Takshak etc and Vinita to Arun and Garud. However when Vasuki and Sheshnaag were born, they were blessed by Vinita (their step mother) to be the assitants to Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu respectively. As a result despite being mighty and serpents, they worked for the welfare of the world, whereas Kalia, Takshak and their other brothers became notorious as ferocious serpents.

The story goes that Vinita’s eggs were taking too long to hatch and therefore Kadru whose aim was to rule the world through her children, coaxed her younger sister Vinita to break the egg as it had started rotting as per Kadru. The first egg gave rise to Arun (which means the light around the Sun especially the first light of the day). However, due to the breaking of the egg, Arun was born with half body only (with lower body missing) and therefore he cursed his mother to become a slave of his sister to experience the same pain that he was going through after being born as half body thereby pushing his mother into a state of depression.

Since Kadru wanted to rule the world and knew that Vinita’s second son is yet to be born and was blessed to be the Indra of the sky by Rishis, she conspired by first of all pushing Vinita out of her depression and then winning a gamble with Vinita after losing which Vinita became a lifetime slave to Kadru and her serpent sons. Subsequently, the second egg of Vinita hatched and gave birth to Garud who initially kept observing the atrocities and insults that his mother had to face as a slave of her own sister without any answer as Vinita had promised Kadru to keep the story of enslavement as a secret only. However subsequently, he decided to find out the truth behing this enslavement and how to free her. He found ways and means to understand where he could find answers through which he reached moon and then Sun riding on the chariot run by his Arun and finally he reached Vishnulok (Vaikunthlok) where Lord Vishnu was in a state of meditation and the place was being guarded by Sheshnag.

It is through Sheshnag that he learnt the partial truth that why his sepent brothers and their mother Kadru were cruel to their own sister Vinita. To understand the deeper truth, Garud went to his step mother Aditi who would have known the story of his mother’s enslavement as Devas know the holistic picture. As such Aditi was the eldest sister. However, when he reached the place, Aditi was doing Tapa (meditation) to bring back the Vaibhav of Devas. Since Asuras did not want this Tapa to succeed, they decided to disrupt it but Garuda fought and defeated Asuras and in order to have their lives spared, their mother Diti told the story of betting and enslavement of Guard’s mother.

The Deep seated meaning of the Story

To begin with Garud is a combination of two words. Garu means heavy and is a synonium to Guru. Ud means to fly. So, Garud means that which is heavy but can fly. Kadru refers to that conscience inside us which becomes jealous. Her serpent children refer to that conscience which spit venom conveying arrogance, aggression and bitterness. In simple words, when jealousy takes over, it creates these vices which even enslave/mask kindness i.e. Vinita. In Ayurvedic terms, when we consume hot and bitter foods in excess, it closes us inwards thereby trapping heat and aggression. Excess closure also doesn’t let thoughts evaporate out thereby trapping excess bitterness in behaviour terms too. The game of gamble between Vinita and Kadru is a message that we should never gamble our kindness with bitterness and whenever we do, we become our own slaves.

Arun the first son of Vinita refers to our inner light that despite being not complete keeps guiding us. Garud is that conscience which is the inner goodness (reared by Vinita) but strong too that despite being heavy can fly out of the confined spaces (confined due to bitterness) and move to the other realms to understand the truth. It is that conscience which ultimately frees our kindness (Vinita) out of the clutches of negativity created by Kadru and her sons. Sheshnag and Vasuki, being the eldest children of Kadru, refers to that conscience which is yet to constrict and therefore carries the knowledge of the Universe (the microcosm inside us) that is about to begin constricting inwards due to jealousy etc. They can be considered as channels where VPK (Lord Vishnu) have stopped flowing as he has gone in meditation, however they do exist where our conscience/will power (as Garud) finally reaches under the guidance of Moon (nutrition), Sun (power/light) and Rishi Kashyap (brain), to free us from the enslavement of jealousy and associated vices. Kalia is that serpent which carries lot of strength but extreme negativity. That is why in another story Lord Krishna (our evolved mind) kills Kalia.

Indra is the king of our indriyas (senses) whose decline begins when he gets inflated with ego of being the best and knowing all. That’s why he rejects/ridicules the pearl of wisdom coming from Shiva (the higher consciousness connecting our brain to the entire world) in form of garland. That is why he is cursed so that he goes inwards, looses his ego (Pitta) which is essential for inner churning. When Pitta becomes weak and mind and body go inwards (which manifests as introversion/diseases/depression etc), the native loses ability to enjoy luxuries of life which signifies loss of Laxmi.

*** While this is an ongoing phenomenon both at microcosmic and macrocosmic level, the deepest message of the story is that we must keep our minds open and avoid ridiculing any knowledge that is coming so that we can apply filters to segregate good from bad, however this is possible only when we slow down through consumption of Sattvic food and not Rajasic food.