figshare
Browse
81. The Śarabha Story 08 Jul 18b.pdf (792.75 kB)

The Śarabha Story

Download (792.75 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2018-07-08, 03:33 authored by TENSING CARLOS RODRIGUESTENSING CARLOS RODRIGUES

Śarabha is not an entirely mythical animal, a pure imagination of the authors of the Śiva Purāṇa and other texts. If we are to go by historical accounts, the animal in the puranic texts was modeled on a real animal that once roamed the forests of Deccan. But we do not know for certain what that animal was. The puranic texts and sculptures depict it as a ‘part-lion and part-bird’ or as an ‘eight-legged deer’; in some Kannada depictions it is a ‘lion-elephant’. Definitely it was not any of this. But it must have been an unusually large and ferocious animal native to the rain forest that once covered a good part of Deccan.

Abu Rihan Al Beruni, a Persian traveller, toured India in the 11th century CE recording its religion, philosophy, literature, geography, astrology, customs and laws. As he roamed the foothills of the Sahyādri, he came across an animal that he calls śarava; or was told about this animal. According to him it looked like a buffalo and was larger than a rhinoceros. It had four legs, but also on the back it had something like four legs directed upwards. It had two big horns. He was told that sometimes it rammed some animal with its horns and raised it towards its back, so that it came to lie between its upper legs. There it became a putrid mass of worms, which worked their way into the back of the animal. That led to the death of the animal. He was also told by the people that sometimes, when it hears the thunder, it takes it to be the roar of some animal and proceeds to attack it. In pursuit of it the śarava climbs up to the top of the mountain-peaks, and thence leaps towards its adversary, plunging itself to death. Al Beruni found this animal in what he calls “plains of Dānak, in the province of Kunkan, with its capital Ṭhāna, on the sea coast, 25 farsakh from Mahratta-Dēsh”. [Sachau, 1910 : Alberuni’s India, 203). Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī, another Persian traveller who toured India around the 13th century CE, also writes about such an animal. [Jahn, 1965 : Rashid al-Din's History of India, 59]

History