Devalok
From the epics · 1 telling · Pan-India

Garuda's journey for the nectar

To free his mother Vinata, Garuda flies to steal the amrita; on the way he eats an elephant and a tortoise on a branch so heavy it breaks, carries the branch with its hanging sages until they bless him, fights through the gods' defences, and wins from Vishnu a place above him and from Indra a friendship.

Who is in it

Texts: Mahabharata

The story, beat by beat

  1. Garuda's mother is a slave; the snakes ask for amrita as ransom.
  2. He eats the Nishadas but spits out a brahmin.
  3. Kashyapa points him to the elephant and the tortoise.
  4. The banyan branch breaks; he holds it in his beak to save the Valakhilyas, who name him.
  5. He passes the wheel of blades and takes the amrita without drinking it.
  6. Vishnu gives a boon and takes him as his mount; Indra's thunderbolt costs him one feather.

mother strength humility freedom

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Primary text (translation)

Mahabharata, Adi Parva 28 to 34

Pan-India Vaishnava

Garuda sets out to buy his mother's freedom with the amrita. Vinata tells him to eat the Nishadas on the shore but never a brahmin; one burns his throat and he lets him go with his Nishada wife. Still hungry, he asks his father Kashyapa, who sends him to a lake where an elephant and a tortoise, two brothers cursed for quarrelling over their wealth, are fighting. Garuda seizes one in each claw and lands on a huge banyan branch, which breaks. Hanging from it head down are the Valakhilya sages; to save them he holds the branch in his beak and flies until Kashyapa calms them, and they name him Garuda, the bearer of the heavy load. He reaches the amrita, scatters the gods, passes a spinning wheel of blades and two fire-eyed snakes, and takes the nectar without drinking. Vishnu, pleased that he did not taste it, offers a boon; Garuda asks to be above him and deathless, and agrees to carry him, and is set on his banner. Indra hurls the thunderbolt; Garuda drops a single feather in honour of the sage whose bones made it, and they become friends.

Mahabharata, Adi Parva 16 to 34, tr. K. M. Ganguli (Project Gutenberg 15474)

Sources: Mahabharata, Adi Parva 16 to 34, tr. K. M. Ganguli (Project Gutenberg 15474)

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