It was in the Orient, however, where, by the way, both simurgh and garuda serve as storm-bringers in several myths, that the conception of gigantic bird-beings was expanded and elaborated with the picturesque details that have been suggested in an earlier paragraph.
A very old Persian tale, with many fanciful embroiderings, runs as follows: There are, or were, two trees—one the Tree of Life, and the other the Tree Opposed to All Harm, the tree that bears the seeds of all useful things; which is like the two trees in the Garden of Eden, over in Babylon. In the latter tree sits and nests the chief of all the mythic birds, the simurgh (called in the Avesta “saena-meregha”), which is said to suckle its young, and to be three natures “like a bat.” “Whenever he arises aloft a thousand twigs will shoot out from that tree, and when he alights he breaks off the thousand twigs and bites the seeds from them. And the bird cinamros [second only to the simurgh] alights likewise in that vicinity; and his work is this, that he collects those seeds that are bitten from the tree of many seeds, which is opposed to harm, and he scatters them where Tishtar [angel that provides rain] seizes the water [from the demons of drought]; so that, while Tishtar shall seize the water, together with those seeds of all kinds, he shall rain them on the world with the rain.” Such is the language of the sacred books.[[26]]
The simurgh figures in Firdausi’s[[93]] legendary epic as the foster-parent of Zal, father of Rustam, the national hero of Persia. When Rudabah’s flank was opened to bring forth Rustam her wound was healed by rubbing it with a simurgh’s feather. Rustam himself, once wounded unto death, was cured in the same manner, and other cases are recorded in great variety. Firdausi explains that the simurgh had its nest on Mt. Elburz, on a peak that touched the sky in a place no man had ever seen; and that it was to that eyrie that it carried the princely baby Zal, whence it was recovered by its parents. In the ancient Avestan ritual it is stated of the vulture varengana: “If a man holds a bone of that strong bird ... or a feather, no one can smite or turn to flight that fortunate man. The feather of that bird brings him help ... maintains him in his glory.” According to De Kay[[18]] the simurgh was a “god-like bird that discussed predestination with Solomon, as the eagle of Givernberg held dialogues with King Arthur.... The simurgh was a prophet.”
But of all the fabulous birds that infest ancient Persian mythology none is held so important as the falcon-like “karshipta,” which brought the sacred law into the Paradise of Jamshid. “Regarding the karshipta they say that it knew how to speak words, and brought the religion to the enclosure which Yim made, and circulated it: there they utter the Avesta in the language of birds.”
We read also of a gigantic bird in Iran, the “kamar,” “which overshadowed the earth and kept off the rain till the rivers dried up.”
In the Hindu mythology Vishnu is the sun-god, while Indra represents the lightning and storm, and the two are in general opposites, rivals, enemies. Vishnu rides on an eagle of supernatural size and power called garuda. In the Pahlavi translation of the stories the simurgh takes the place of the eagle, for their characters as well as their names are interchangeable. Garuda was born from an egg laid by Vinata, herself the daughter of a hawk and the mother of the two immense vultures that in Persian myths guard the gates of hell, and elsewhere figure boldly in Oriental fables; it is a mortal enemy, now of the serpent and now of the elephant, and now of the tortoise—all three connected with Indra. This bird carries into the air an elephant and a tortoise in order to devour them, and in one of the various accounts leaves them on a mountain-top as did the simurgh and the rukh their iniquitous “liftings.”
Garuda also appears in Japanese legendary art as gario, or binga, or bingacho, or karobinga, half woman, half bird, a sort of winged and feathered angel with a tail like a phenix and legs like a crane. This reminds us of the harpies of Greece. The Malays recognize the image, and when a cloud obscures the sun Perak men will say: “Gerda is spreading his wings to dry.”
The Chinese, and after them the Japanese, had a phenix-like bird in their mythical aviary, which persists in the faith of the more simple-minded of their peoples, and as a fruitful motive in the decorative art of each. It was one of the four supernatural creatures that in ancient Chinese philosophy symbolized the four quarters of the heavens. The Taoists, whose religious ideas are older than Confucianism and prevailed especially among the humble and unlearned, called it the Scarlet Bird, and associated it with the element Fire, and with their mystic number 7. Archaic pictures show a crested bird with long tail-feathers—a figure that might well be meant for a peacock. The creature itself is said not to have been seen by mortal eyes since the time of Confucius, but it has by no means been forgotten, for it is the fung-whang, or feng-huang (which is the names of the male and the female of the species conjoined); and it lives even now on embroidered screens and painted vases, or proudly distinguishes royal robes, from the Thibetan mountains to the Yellow Sea.
A recent writer on Eastern art[[68]] describes the proper fung as a gorgeously colored bird with a long tail. Its feathers are red, azure, yellow, white, and black, the five colors belonging to the five principal virtues; and the Chinese ideograms for uprightness, humanity, virtue, honesty, and sincerity, are impressed on various parts of its body. Its cries are symbolic, its appearance precedes the advent of virtuous rulers. As in the other cases this bird carries something away—this time an eminent philosopher, Baik-fu, was translated. In Japan the peasantry, at least, still hold to the reality of the same bird under the name ho-ho, and artists and symbolists have beautifully utilized the conception.[[90]] The belief is that the sun descends to earth from time to time in the form of the ho-ho, as a messenger of love, peace, and goodwill, and rests on one or another of the torii. It appears to have become a badge of imperial rank in China before the time of the Ming dynasty, and, in Japan it became the symbol of the empress, and in old times, as we are told, only empresses and royal princesses could have its likeness woven into their dress-goods.
It will be noticed that this last-considered member of our fabulous flock, the fung-whang or ho-ho, is the only one not of gigantic size or distorted or terrifying aspect. This indicates to me its comparatively recent origin, and its beneficent disposition shows that it is the creation of men accustomed to peace under kindly skies. It is an interesting fact that when the Mongolian felt called upon to portray demoniac beings he exaggerated to the extent of his ability human expressions of rage, villainy and ferocity, instead of using for his purpose animals of Titanic size, or in horrifying combinations, as did magicians south of the great mountains.