Hamsa

[jkirk]

Not only that, but parallel to the idea that a beautiful woman has the gait 
of a hamsa (swan or whatever you want), in the Kama Sutra is says the 
beautiful woman has the gait of an elephant. Perhaps we today do not 
appraise such gaits as beautiful or charming, but some ancients did. Both 
goose and elephant are real creatures, not fantastic animals, and I find it 
a stretch to assume that the hamsa in some classic texts is meant to be a 
mythical animal. Instead it's a poetic figure, and if it lives in ponds of 
golden lotuses and has mystical cries, and longs for Lake Manasarovar, so 
what? That's poetry.
Joanna Kikrpatrick
=================================



>  Hamsa all over again!?
>
> Fortunately, I had the hamsa pictures left up on the web
>
> http://huntingtonarchive.osu.edu/Hamsa/hamsa%20index.html
>
> As one can easily see the early sculptors certainly intended to  portray a 
> goose
>
> John
>
>
> John C. Huntington
>     (Buddhist Art and Methodologies)
> The Ohio State University
===================
>>>
>>> A hamsa is neither a swam or a duck but a mythic bird.
>>>
>>> Regards.
>>>
>>> Harsha
>>> Prof. Harsha V. Dehejia
>>> Ottawa, ON. Canada