Moor says Garuda was an animal--half bird, half man--and was the _vahan_ or vehicle of Vishnu, also Arun's younger brother. He is sometimes described in the manner that our poets and painters describe a griffin or a cherub; and he is placed at the entrance of the passes leading to the Hindu garden of Eden, and there appears in the character of a destroying angel in as far as he resists the approach of serpents, which in most systems of poetical mythology appears to have been the beautiful, deceiving, insinuating form that sin originally assumed. Garuda espoused a beautiful woman; the tribes of serpents, alarmed thereat, lest his progeny should, inheriting his propensities, overpower them, waged fierce war against him; but he destroyed them all, save one, which he placed as an ornament about his neck. In the Elephanta cave Garuda is often seen with this appendage; and some very old gold coins are in existence depicting him with snakes or elephants in his talons and beaks. Destroyer of serpents, Naganteka, is one of his names. He was of great use to Krishna in clearing the country round Dwarka (otherwise Dravira) from savage ferocious animals and noxious reptiles. Vishnu had granted to Garuda the power of destroying his as well as Siva's enemies; also generally those guilty of constant uncleanness, unbelievers, dealers in iniquity, ungrateful persons, those who slander their spiritual guides, or defiled their beds; but forebade him to touch a Brahman, whatever was his guilt, as the pain of disobedience would be a scorching pain in his throat, and any attack on a holy or pious person would be followed by a great diminution of strength. By mistake, however, Garuda sometimes seized a priest or a religious man, but was admonished and punished in the first case by the scorching flame, and was unable, even when he had bound him in his den, to hurt the man of piety.[20] To Rama also, in the war of Lauka, Garuda was eminently useful: in Rama's last conflict with Ravana the latter was not overcome without the aid of Garuda, sent by Vishnu to destroy the serpent-arrows of Ravana. These arrows are called "Sharpa-vana" (in the current dialect _Sarpa_ a snake, is corrupted into _Saap_ or _Samp_, and _vana_, an arrow, into _ban_) and had the faculty of separating, between the bow and the object, into many parts, each becoming a serpent. Viswamitra conferred upon Rama the power of transforming his arrows into "Garuda-vanas," they similarly separating themselves into "Garuda's," the terror and destroyer of the _Sarpa_.