Hamsa (bird)
have criticised Vogel's view as being over-reliant on artistic representations from south India and Sri Lanka, where the white swan is rare.
[6] Similarly, the British ornithologist Peter Scott, in his Key to the Wildfowl of the World (1957),[needs update] states that northwestern India is one of the winter migration homes for mute swans, the others being Korea and the Black Sea.
[7] Grewal, Harvey and Pfister, in 2003, state that the mute swan is "a vagrant mainly in Pakistan but also northwestern India" and include a map marking their distribution.
[9] Dave stated, "the present position according to Hume is that Swans do not occur anywhere within Indian limits outside the Himalayas except in the extreme North-West", and suggested that they were perhaps more common in the "hoary past.
"[10] The hymns of Rigveda, verses in Hindu epics and Puranas, as well as other early Indian texts, states KN Dave, mention a variety of birds with the root of hamsa (हंस), such as Maha-hamsa, Raj-hamsa, Kal-hamsa and others.
[11] This identification is based on the details provided in the Sanskrit texts about the changes in plumage over the bird's life, described call, migratory habits, courtship rituals and flying patterns.
[11] The Indian ornithologist Salim Ali stated in his Azad Memorial Lecture of 1979 that Sanskrit names for birds were based on their calls, coloration, habits, gait, method of feeding or other observed traits.
This Manasa, assumes Salim Ali, is Lake Manasarovar and then states that the hamsa birds therein should be interpreted as bar-headed geese that do migrate over the Himalayas from Tibet.
[12] The historic Sanskrit and Prakrit literature of India does not mention the location of the lake Manasa that they consider the natural abode of the hamsa.
Ethno-ornithologists Sonia Tidemann and Andrew Gosler in Ethno-ornithology: Birds, Indigenous Peoples, Culture and Society state that hamsa has been identified as "swans" in early Indian texts, and that titles such as Raja-hamsa were applied to ascetics and holy-men in Indian culture because ancient Hindu and Buddhist stories ascribed the ability to separate good from evil to the hamsa.
[citation needed] According to Nanditha Krishna, the hamsa in the early north Indian tradition is best identified as a swan as the mythical symbol of wisdom.
The other, states Lanman, is that "the swan, goose, duck and flamingo have a series of lamellae which serve as a sieve for straining their food from the water that they take in".
[15] Martin Lerner and Steven Kossak identify a 2nd-century BCE Gandharan relief now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, item 1987.142.212) that shows a swan with a rider.
It is also borrowed into Malay angsa (Jawi: اڠسا), though modern definitions provided by dictionaries of its present literary standards differ: the Malaysian dictionary Kamus Dewan defines this specifically to the Anser genus especially A. albifrons whereas the Indonesian counterpart Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia defines this towards Cygnus,[29] both mirroring Monier's varied interpretations of the original Sanskrit word itself.
The hintha (equivalent to hamsa) is widely depicted in Burmese art, considered to be a ruddy shelduck in its culture, and has been adopted as the symbol of the Mon people.
