Topic Research: Animals; Natural and Supernatural

This week, I decided I would look deeper into the role of animals in Indian mythology. I started with looking at Vishnu again, as he has a total of 4 animal incarnations. He is incarnated as a fish, turtle, boar, and man-lion. Of these, I enjoyed reading the tales of his fish form, Matsya, and his turtle form, Kurma, the most.

 

In the tale of Matsya from the Mahabharata, some guy is doing some rituals along a river and a little fish asks for his protection. He protects the fish for quite some time and it grows enormous, then saves him from a storm on the ocean. It's pretty neat, and I'm excited to read the full story when we get there instead of just this little summary. This is the first story I've thought about using as a core concept.

The story of Kurma is also a really cool story to read. Some gods get cursed, and need the nectar of immortality to survive. Vishnu becomes Kurma, a giant sea turtle, and puts a mountain on his back and swims into the cosmic ocean. The gods and Rakshasas use a snake as a rope around the mountain to spin Kurma in the ocean and churn the waters to make the nectar. The Rakshasas steal the nectar and Vishnu becomes Mohini to trick them and get it back. As I've previously stated, I really like turtles, ad I think this one may be really cool to write a story with.

Kurma Churning

Finally, I looked into Prajapati some more. Prajapati is the lord of creatures, and in some places, he is also known to be Vishnu, Brahma, and other great beings. Overall, it seems as though his exact origins are unclear, and he seems to be more of an idea or category of being, rather than a single entity to me. This term is also used to designate those who create new things. I've been thinking that I could create a story from the Mahabharata version of Prajapati, which is agents of creation rather than the god of creation. I plan on looking more into this after I read the Mahabharata.