Garuda

Courtesy: Sri.Prasanna

garuDana mElEri gagana maargadalli
tarataradi stutipa surastrIyara
mereva gandharvara gaanava saviyuva
narahari namma hasege baa || 86

Eri - Climbing
mEle - on top of
garuDana - Garuda
mereva - being glorious
maargadalli - in the entire path
gagana - of the sky,
stutipa - he was praised
tarataradi - in various ways
sura - by the divine
strIyara - women.
narahari - O Lord Hari
saviyuva - you enjoyed
gaanava - the songs
gandharvara - of the Gandharvas
baa - Come
namma - to our
hasege - wedding platform

Climbing on top of Garuda and being glorious in the entire path of the
sky,Lord Vishnu was praised in various ways by the Devapatnis and Apsaras.
O Lord Hari, you enjoyed the songs sung by the Gandharvas. Come to our
wedding platform.

Garuda is the vehicle of Lord Vishnu. In the gradation of deities
(taratamya), he is on the same level as Shesha and Rudra, which is why he
is mentioned next to the verse describing Rudra. Though Garuda is the
vehicle of the Lord, one should not think that Garuda is supporting Vishnu.
In reality, Vishnu resides within and supports Garuda.

Garuda is in the form of an eagle, but there are deeper meanings to the
word. 'giratIti garuDa' - one who swallows poison is known as Garuda. He
is capable of stopping not only the poison of snakes, but the poisonous
things in our life, the inauspicious events. He takes away the amangala,
and brings mangala or auspiciousness.

So it is quite appropriate that the form of Vishnu residing within Garuda
is Narahari. Hari means one who takes away our sins, paapa parihaaraka, but
also amangala parihaaraka. Since Vishnu resides within Garuda and supports
him, it is really Vishnu who enables Garuda to take away the sins of
others, protecting us from the poison of inauspicious things.

Another meaning of Garuda is someone who possesses 'Garuth'. Garuth means
the unique wings of Garuda, whose flapping doesn't produce noise, but
rather Sama Veda hymns which are praising Lord Vishnu. Garuda is also the
abhimani devata for the Vedas.

In the next Kalpa, both Shesha and Garuda attain mukti. Rudra becomes
Shesha, and the next in line in Garuda gaNa becomes Garuda. They are all
equal in terms of knowledge, strength, power, and beauty.

The word surastriyaru is used in this verse. It can mean either Apsaras,
who are celestial dancers, or it can refer to devata patni, the wives of
the deities.

Narahari means the same as Narasimha. It also means 'puruShottama', the
greatest among all beings.

Sri Krishnarpanamastu