The heavenly goose
In India, there have been a few select spiritual figures who have come to be known by the title paramhansa, among them for example, Sri Ramakrishna and Paramhansa Yogananda. Many translations of this Sanskrit word give it as ‘heavenly swan‘ or ‘transcendent swan‘.
As well as the obvious connotations of grace and beauty, the swan also evokes other spiritual qualities. It can live equally on land or water, a metaphor for the paramhansa’s ability to be at home both in the inner and outer worlds. According to Indian legend, the swan also is able to separate milk from water, and so the paramhansa is similarly supposed to be able to separate the Real from the unreal on the strength of his meditative awareness.
However, there is a school of thought that says that the literal translation of paramhansa is not ‘heavenly swan‘, but rather ‘heavenly goose‘. The goose, being mainly a farmyard bird in the west, is commonly ridiculed as having characteristics of foolishness and woollyheadedness (which is why the translators probably elected to to choose the swan instead!). But in India the goose carries those exact same attributes of grace and beauty as the swan, in particular the bar-headed goose (photo on right), which twice a year makes the arduous crossing over the Himalayas from Central Asia to India. During these migration, the geese have been observed flying at heights of 9150m, higher than any other bird; yet another analogy with the paramhansa, who flies to sublime meditative heights that the rest of us long to reach for.
