All of us view Hayagriva as the gnyAna avatAr of Sri Maha Vishnu. In fact as per the skanda Purana, the horse’s head which Viswakarma places on Vishnu is obtained from one of the sun’s horses. Hayagriva is also called as’vas’ira.
Reference and Source: In his essay on the The Philological Method of the Veda Sri Aurobindo says :
There is a peculiar extension of it in the Vedic use, a deliberate employment of the “multi-significance” of Sanskrit roots in order to pack as much meaning as possible into a single word, which at first sight enhances the difficulty of the problem to an extraordinary degree. For instance, the word, asva, usually signifying a horse, is used as a figure of the Prana, the nervous energy, the vital breath, the half-mental, half-material dynamism which links mind and matter. Its root is capable, among other senses, of the ideas of impulsion, force, possession, enjoyment, and we find all these meanings united in this figure of the Steed of Life to indicate the essential tendencies of the Pranic energy.
Let us go back to the Yogic Interpretation of the Hayagriva story as I have given here : Hayagriva and Madhu-Kaitabha as per Mahabharata
Now let us take asva as prANic energy as per Sri Aurobindo and see what happens when we connect the ideas – as’vagrIva or hayagrIva or as’vas’ira as prANagrIva or prANas’ira and to the concept of gnyAna or the Vedas. You no longer imagine a literal head of a horse but someone with high yogic attainment.
Here is a link to Kundalini Rising if you are interested.
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