The Garuda Purana’s Bird and Serpent Cosmology

Record summary

The Garuda Purana uses Garuda as its principal interlocutor and includes cosmological, ritual, funerary, medical, and mythological material. Its bird imagery is relevant to comparison because Garuda’s aerial power and antagonism toward serpents are embedded in a broader religious system rather than isolated as a natural-history claim. The text exists in differing recensions and is often popularly reduced to its funerary sections. Researchers should establish which edition, chapter, and regional manuscript tradition is being used before comparing its creature descriptions with other South Asian traditions.