Garuda

Garuda

**Garuda** is the King of Birds in Hindu Mythology. He is the vahana of Lord Vishnu. He is described to be a huge eagle. He is a secondary minor character in *Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes*, and also the person Aranyani entrusted with the take of helping to hide the Kalpavriksha.

## History

### Life

Kashyapa's two wives, Vinata and Kadru, wanted to have children, so he granted each of them a boon. Kadru asked for one thousand Naga sons, but Vinata only asked for two, yet each an equal to all of Kadru's thousand sons. Kashyapa blessed them, and then retreated to a forest to meditate. Later, Kadru gave birth to one thousand eggs while Vinata gave birth to two. After incubating them for five hundred years, Kadru's eggs hatched and out came all of her sons. Vinata, eager for her own sons, impatiently broke one of her eggs. From this egg emerged the partially formed Aruna, although he looked like the morning sun, he was not as bright as the midday sun as promised. Aruna chided his mother, Vinata for her impatience, and warned her to not break open the second egg, cursing her to be a slave until his brother rescued her. Aruna then left to become the charioteer of Surya, the sun god. Vinata waited, and after many years the second egg hatched, and Garuda was born.

After losing a bet to Kadru through trickery, Vinata was forced to become her slave. Garuda later asked his brothers to free his mother from her slavery, to which they demanded *amrita* from heaven. Garuda waged a war against gods with his extraordinary might and abilities beyond thinking, and defeated all of them, including King Indra. He then took Indra's nectar vessel and flew back to earth. Vishnu then came to Garuda, and asked him to be his ride, to which he agreed. Indra requested that Garuda not give the *amrita* to the Nagas though, as it would bring great trouble later, so they forged a plan. Upon reaching his brothers Garuda placed the vessel before them, and asked them to first purify themselves before drinking. Meanwhile, Jayanta, the son of Indra, stole the vessel back. Upon returning, the Nagas were all devoured by Garuda.

### Hindu Mythology

Garuda is the vehicle (vahana) of Lord Vishnu and appears on the god's banner. Garuda represents birth and heaven, and is the enemy of all snakes.

In the Rigveda the sun is compared to a bird in its flight across the sky, and an eagle carries the ambrosial soma plant from heaven to earth. The mythological account of Garuda’s birth in the *Mahabharata* identifies him as the younger brother of Aruna, the charioteer of the sun god, Surya. Garuda’s mother, Vinata, mother of the birds, was tricked into becoming the slave of her sister and co-wife, Kadru, mother of the *naga*s (serpents). The lasting enmity between the birds, particularly Garuda, and the serpents is attributed to this. The *naga*s agreed to release Vinata if Garuda could obtain for them a drink of the elixir of immortality, the *amrita*, or soma. Garuda performed that feat, thus giving the snakes the ability to slough off their old skins, and, on his way back from the heavens, he met Vishnu and agreed to serve him as his vehicle and also as his emblem.

## *The Pandava Quintet*

### *Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes*

Garuda is first mentioned when the Potatoes are examining the wooden eagle, and they notice the letter 'G' on it. Rudy immediately starts to panic, since Garuda is the sworn enemy of all the Nagas, *including* him.

However, Garuda makes his first appearance the next morning, in Tennessee, along with his army of all the birds. While the birds taunt and jeer at the Potatoes, Garuda silently observes all of them. Finally, one raven starts to inform the Potatoes that they've been charged with the theft of a precious object on loan from Garuda to the Goddess Aranyani. And since they had not only stolen the object but also broken it, they would be executed, which leads to the Potatoes backfiring their words with their chosen words. But the Potatoes slowly realize that the leading cause to their execution is the fact that Rudy, who is the descendant of Kadru, is with them. Mini immediately perks up, trying to reason with Garuda by saying that Rudy is completely harmless. But the raven doesn't take any of their 'excuses' and proceeds to give them an explanation.

The raven proceeds to show them a hologram of Garuda's childhood and all the acts of injustice Kadru did to him and his mother, and at the end of the vision, he justifies the execution of the Potatoes with the fact that Rudy is a direct descendant of Kadru and deserves death. At the end, Garuda sends his army of various birds to attack the Potatoes.

The Pandavas along with Aiden immediately fall into battle formation, attacking the birds and rendering them motionless, while Rudy crouches on the bird, working furiously on the wooden eagle, trying to fix it. During the battle, Aru notices that Garuda himself stays absolutely motionless and still, not uttering a single word and carefully observing the whole battle, which leads to realization dawning on Aru that if they don't fix the wooden eagle, Garuda *will* execute them.

Fortunately, Rudy finally manages to fix the wooden eagle by putting a sapphire in place, and a beautiful, honey-like sound starts emitting from the eagle, signaling that the thing is finally fixed. Then the eagle started emitting a new song, which instantly resulted in all of the birds flying off and disappearing.

Then, finally, Garuda speaks, asking the Potatoes on how they fixed the eagle. After a few more questions, Garuda shows them another vision on how he recurred the amrita, and then commands with lamentation that he must not let the Potatoes leave his service while still staying alive.

And just then, Boo enters the forest.

He uses his power as a member of the Council of the Guardians, and says that he himself sanctioned the quest to them, and because of his authority, Garuda is unable to do anything. Garuda warns the Potatoes of the challenges that lay, and also tell them of the Chakora Forest, from where they might recruit the next part of their mission.

With that, he takes off.

## Physical Appearance

Aru Shah contemplates that the real King Garuda looks a lot like the sculptures and statues that she has seen in her mother's museum.

He has eyes which are a handsome shade of amber and a face representing a human, albeit the fact that it is covered in brilliant green feathers, and he has a sharp golden beak in the place of a nose. He has bronze wings nearly seven feet long, which mostly stay folded behind his shoulders. From the neck down, he looks like a strong man with tanned skin, even though his hands and feet which ends in sharp talons are an exception. He has dark curly hair, on top of which he wears a wide-brimmed solid gold baseball cap. He wears long silk shorts covered in trophy badges.

## Personality

In the books, Garuda is shown to have a calm, poised, wise and grave demeanor, always mindful of his respective duties. Aru describes him as a person who wouldn't be interested in any kind of talk, including small talk. He is shown to have a great amount of hatred towards Nagas and snakes, the only exception being Rudy, since Rudy helped fix the wooden eagle. Despite that, Garuda manages to hold great respect for Boo, since he is a member of the Council of Guardians.

## Abilities

* **Immortality:** In Hindu Mythology, it is said that Garuda could have drunk the *amrita* himself and become immortal but he had to offer it to the snakes to free his mother. This selfless act of Garuda impressed Vishnu, who granted him a boon that he would become immortal even without drinking the *amrita*.
* **Avian Manipulation:** Being the King of the Birds, Garuda likely has the army of all the birds and has complete authority over them.

## Trivia

* Garuda is shown either in zoomorphic form (giant bird with partially open wings) or an anthropomorphic form (man with wings and some bird features).
* He is described as a kite-like figure.