Carrying God: Is Garuḍa Merely a Mount, Or is He an Independent Deity? Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

The majority of references to Garuḍa in secondary literature know him simply as “the mount of Vishnu.” The association between God and his mount is so close that an otherwise unidentifiable image might reliably be deemed Vishnu, or a temple could be seen as distinctly Vaishnava—merely by the presence of his avian form. Such an association is not unlike other Hindu mounts or ubiquitous attributes and their deities: the bull for Śiva, the peacock for Skanda, the lion or tiger for Durgā, the lotus for Lakṣmi, and so forth. In these examples, the mount or attributable object do not tend to be worshipped in their own right and have no history of independent veneration (pūjā). But the case of Garuḍa is far more complex.