Indian mythology 3.
"A Meal Ocean whipping". (A. Fantalov, 1993, oil on canvas).
The gods and asuras (demons) decided to extract a beverage of immortality ("Amrta"). Therefore they whipping Meal Ocean by means of mythical serpent and a mount. Also, the many other marvelous objects were obtained (for example: a white elephant, magic tree, heaven dancers-"apsaras".
Surya. (A. Fantalov, 2003, watercolour on paper).
Surya (the god of sun drives in chariot with seven horses. His charioteer was Aruna (the Garuda’s brother). Rahu (a Surya’s enemy) sometimes swallowed the sun however as rahu had got hole in his neck Surya always came outside.
Garuda obtains amrita. (A. Fantalov, 2003, watercolour on paper).
Garuda was a son of Kadru. Once Vinata and her sister Kadru disputed about a colour of divinity horse . Vinata said that it is white, Kadru said that it is black. On the night the children of Kadru - Nagas (the mythical serpents) plaited themselves into mane and tail of horse and on the morning it was like black. Therefore Vinata became she slave of Kadru. In order to set free his mother Garuda obtained amrita (beverage of immortality) that was save by two terrible dragons.
On this picture the dragons are shown like Nagas as the serpent in many mythologies were connected with sun. And Garuda as great eagle probably was supporter of the God of Thunder (in primary variant of myths).
Contact e-mail: fantalov@rambler.ru