Sūrpākshī
Sūrpākshī was a rākshasī (a female rākshasa) who stole infants. She appears in the Niśākara upākhyāna (the side story of Niśākara) in Chapter 64 of the Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa. She tried to take the brāhmaṇa child Niśākara from the doorstep of Kośakāra and carry him to Śālodara mountain to eat him. Her husband Ghaṭodara warned her of the danger and sent her back.
In this event the rākshasa couple lost their own child to the mantra power of Kośakāra. Without knowing it, they left their son in the brāhmaṇa household. He was later named Dīvākara.
The theft and why it failed
The Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa describes Sūrpākshī as a rākshasī who made a habit of stealing infants. Dharmishṭhā left Niśākara at the doorstep of the house of Kośakāra, because the child seemed dull. Sūrpākshī came there with her own thin and weak child. She put her child at the doorstep, took the brāhmaṇa infant and flew to Śālodara mountain to eat him.
Her husband Ghaṭodara was blind. He sensed what she had brought and warned her. Kośakāra was a great mantravid (one who knows mantras), and his anger would be dangerous. Ghaṭodara ordered her to take the infant back at once and find some other child. Sūrpākshī obeyed her husband and flew back through the air.
The Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa tells this in Chapter 64.
The loss of her own child
By the time she came back, Kośakāra had already found out about the exchange through his mantra-vidyā (knowledge of mantras). She threw the brāhmaṇa child back, and Kośakāra caught his own son. The marks of mantra that he had made on the ground had already bound the rākshasa infant, so Sūrpākshī could not take him back. She returned to Ghaṭodara having lost both the brāhmaṇa child and her own infant.
Kośakāra took in the child she had left, her own son, and named him Dīvākara. Dīvākara grew up in the brāhmaṇa household together with Niśākara. He received the upanayana (the sacred thread ceremony) and studied the Vedas with ease.
The Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa tells this in Chapter 64.
Sources
- Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa, Chapter 64