Birds and heroes

In the earlier post, I had written briefly about Garuda whose heroic feat earned him his place as Vishnu's vahana. Garuda, unlike Gayatri, is a male bird and he fetches Amrita for his mother while Gayatri gets Soma for the gods. The two myths use similar motifs but may have been developed for completely different purposes.

For one the Garuda myth is much longer and far more layered than the one about meters. Garuda's unusual birth is described in detail as is his journey to get the Amrita. He has to get it to free his mother, ensnared by her sister and her snake children. Gayatri has to get Soma because the gods want it, the myth does not offer a deeper rationale for the quest.

The other difference is that Garuda has to cross several barriers and fight the guards of Amrita to be able to get a jar for his mother. The meters, on the other hand, manage the exchange more amicably. Gayatri, in fact, (the myth does not say how) gets the nectar without giving up anything at all.

The Garuda myth also reflects the traditional rivalry between the snake kingdom and the kingdom of birds. The Gayatri-Soma myth does not directly touch upon any rivalries but, it is possible that the three meters or the tribes speaking these meters were in competition with each other.

So what were the myths developed for? It would be foolish to attempt a single definitive answer but it is possible that the myths were developed around the same time but by different people. Also the original Garuda myth, in all probability, has been embellished over the ages to serve different purposes. For instance, the bit about Garuda becoming a vahana for Vishnu may well be a later addition. It is possible that there existed a tribe of Garuda worshippers who were assimilated into the Vedic fold at a later stage.

The Garuda myth also goes into great detail about the birth of the hero, the call for adventure and the difficulties and the final quest. This shows that the myth has been developed over a long period of time, giving it a linear and somewhat logical narrative structure.

The Gayatri-Soma myth is not as detailed and since it deals with an abstract concept is not as easily grasped. It also seems to be created for the express purpose of establishing the supremacy of one meter or the tribe speaking in that meter over the rest. In that sense it is not a true hero myth but, in Malinowskian terms, a charter myth which is created with the sole purpose of explaining a social event or function or human behaviour.