Explaining the Tattoo/Mark - It's Meaning and Significance - Page 2

Originally posted by: sashashyam

A small correction, and a bit of amplification, my dear.

The bird is not the Garuda Chin, but Garuda himself. Chinna means sign, or mark, and the tattoo, or rather the mark, for it regenerated itself effortlessly, is the Garuda Chinna or Chin.

The Garuda, or the divine eagle, is the mount, or vahana, of Lord Vishnu, the Protector in the Hindu Trinity. Now, after the Amrit Kumbh surfaced from the ocean during the samudramanthan, it was Lord Vishnu, in his Mohini avatar, as a beautiful woman, who took charge of the distribution of the amrit between the Devas and the Asuras.

She managed to prevent the Asuras from getting any of the amrit and thus attaining immortality. Except for Rahu, an Asura who disguised himself as a Deva and got a mouthful of amrit from Mohini before he was caught out and beheaded by Lord Vishnu's Sudharshan Chakra. However, as he had already become immortal, his head stayed on as Rahu and his body as Ketu.

So, just as Lord Vishnu, in his Mohini avatar, was the guardian of the amrit immediateluy after the samudramanthan, his mount, the Garuda, became its guardian afterwards.

Incidentally, after the Asuras - who had worked just as hard as the Devas during the samudramanthan, which would have never succeeded without them - were conned out of the amrit, their guru, Shukracharya, managed to get the Sanjeevani mantra, with which he could restore the dead asuras to life, and thus provided some sort of balance between the two rival groupings.

Shyamala Aunty