Mohini

Sex is recorded as female without qualification, because that is what the sources say and what the figure is for; the record does not editorialise about a male god taking a female form, and it does not merge her into the Vishnu record, because a registry that indexes figures should be able to hold a figure who is a form. She is the direct cause of Rahu's beheading — the disguise she is countering is Svarbhanu's — and the two records in this batch therefore describe the same minute from two sides.

Domains

• enchantment

Relations

• form taken by: VishnuNon-symmetric, and the kind is 'form-taken-by' rather than 'avatar-of' because the sources treat Mohini as a form assumed for one purpose rather than as one of the ten descents. The corpus files the avatars as separate records and this follows that, while marking the difference.Reference treatment: the gods appealed to Vishnu, who then took the form of Mohini. (secondary)

Sources

• Mohini is the female form Vishnu takes at the churning, who distracts the asuras, recovers the amrita and gives it to the Adityas.: Reference treatments of Mohini and of the Samudra Manthan. (secondary)