Bull
animal · 13 works · 15 mentions · 19 anchored passages
bulls · bull · the bull · a bull · a victim · bull man · bull-horned god · mighty bull · rain-giving bull · the bulls' backs
spoken of as
3 expressionsbulls6 mentions
On Anger (Latin) · On Moral Ends (Latin) · Critias (Greek) · Cyropaedia (Greek) · Aeneid (Latin)
the bulls toss their horns into the empty air and scatter the sand with the stamping of their feet;
the bull1 mention
Sāmaveda (Sanskrit)
the all-formed lustre that arose on the earth, measuring out its own greatness in the mid-air — that is the shining seed of the rain-giving bull.
Ṛṣabha“bull”1 mention
Atharvaveda (Paippalāda) (Sanskrit)
Homage to your greatness and to your eye, O Vaśā and Ṛṣabha — this I do with the mind.
in the texts
On Anger
Animal cited as displaying visible signs of provoked ferocity.
the bulls toss their horns into the empty air and scatter the sand with the stamping of their feet;
Look at the elephants' necks bowed to the yoke, the bulls' backs trodden with impunity by boys and women alike as they leap about, the serpents gliding with harmless slither among the cups and in the bosom, the placid mouths of bears and lions within the house, and the wild beasts fawning on those who handle them;
Aeneid
Animal mentioned as a potential victim within the wolf simile.
As creeps back to the hills in pathless covert ere his foes pursue, from shepherd slain or mighty bull laid low, some wolf, who, now of his bold trespass ware, curls close against his paunch a quivering tail and to the forest tries:
As o'er Taburnus' top, or spacious hills of Sila, in relentless shock of war, two bulls rush brow to brow, while terror-pale the herdsmen fly;
Atharvaveda (Paippalāda)
The bull Ṛṣabha, consort of the vaśā-cow, honored alongside her.
Homage to your greatness and to your eye, O Vaśā and Ṛṣabha — this I do with the mind.
The bull mounted the vaśā-cow as she stood upon the threads of fate.
On Moral Ends
Cited as an example of an animal's natural instinct to fight for its young
And as it has been given by nature to bulls that they contend for their calves against lions with the utmost force and onset, so those who are strong in resources and able to do it — as we have heard of Hercules and of Liber — are incited by nature to the saving of the human race.
Bacchae
An actual bull that Pentheus mistakenly binds believing it to be the captured stranger, and an epithet applied to Dionysus himself.
He found a bull by the stable where he took and shut me up, and threw shackles around its knees and hooves, breathing out fury, dripping sweat from his body, gnashing his teeth in his lips.
Critias
Sacred bulls kept within Poseidon's precincts, hunted without iron weapons and sacrificed by the ten kings as part of their oath and judgement ritual.
and the ten princes, being alone by themselves, after praying to the God that they might capture a victim well-pleasing unto him, hunted after the bulls with staves and nooses but with no weapon of iron;
And after this they drew out from the bowl with golden ladles, and making libation over the fire swore to give judgement according to the laws upon the pillar and to punish whosoever had committed any previous transgression;
Lycurgus
An impossibly enormous bull named by Geradas as the hypothetical fine for adultery, underscoring adultery's nonexistence in Sparta.
A bull, said Geradas, would be his forfeit, a bull so large that it could stretch over Mount Taÿgetus and drink from the river Eurotas.
Rigveda
Bull imagery used for strength, sacrifice, and virility.
Bellowing, the sharp-horned bull has stood at the top, at the breadth of the earth.
We desire, O Aśvins, to go to the house of that beloved potent bull, the seed-sower.
They cook bulls for thee;
Sāmaveda
A bull used as a recurring simile/epithet for divine power and generative force.
the all-formed lustre that arose on the earth, measuring out its own greatness in the mid-air — that is the shining seed of the rain-giving bull.
The peoples have placed Agni, the upholder of cosmic order, the great bull, visible to all, at the fore for their blessing.
Swift, whetted, terrible as a bull, striking blow on blow, shaking all peoples — the roaring, unwinking, sole hero Indra conquered a hundred armies at once.
Manusmṛti
Male animal used as an illustrative example that seed alone does not confer ownership of offspring.
If a bull should beget a hundred calves in the cows of others, those calves belong to the owners of the cows;
San Hyan Mahajnana
The bull, serving as the vehicle (vāhana) of the Rudra-form deity associated with the suṣupti state.
*The deity of suṣupti is said to be of Rudra-form, holding time.
They all ride upon a bull.
The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
Middle male size-class; also invoked as the manner of mounting in the 'congress of a cow.'
When a woman stands on her hands and feet like a quadruped, and her lover mounts her like a bull, it is called the "congress of a cow.
, the hare man, the bull man, and the horse man, according to the size of his lingam.
On the female side, the elephant and bull, the mare and hare, form low unions, while the elephant and the hare make the lowest unions.
Cyropaedia
Sacrificial animals led at the head of the procession.
Then, when the palace gates were thrown open, there were led out at the head of the procession four abreast some exceptionally handsome bulls for Zeus and for the other gods as the magi directed;