DANIELLE FELLER danielle.feller@unil.ch
University of Lousanne
SUDHA BERRY sudhaberry@gmail.com
COCK AND BULL STORIES. THE ORIGINS OF GARUḌA AND NANDI AS VĀHANAS IN THE SANSKRIT EPICS The relationship between gods and their respective animal carriers or vāhanas achieves full expression in the Purāṇas and is incorporated in the iconography of the deity; but it is often difficult to trace the origin of these vāhanas and understand their earlier history. The two Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, appear as the ideal locus to search for earlier references to vāhanas, for the symbiotic link between some deities and their animal carrier emerges in nascent form in these two texts. In both epics, there are references to the great bird Garuḍa, who becomes Viṣṇu’s vāhana, to Airāvata, Indra’s elephant carrier, to vŗṣabha, Śiva’s bull—also sometimes referred to by his name Nandi—and to Skanda’s bird, being varyingly called a kukkuṭa (rooster) or a mayūra (peacock). This paper will concentrate on the epic references to the vāhanas associated with two prominent deities in the epics, that subsequently rise to full preeminence in the Purāṇas, namely, Viṣṇu and Śiva, with a view to understanding and contrasting the origins of their vāhanas, the bird Garuḍa and the bull Nandi.