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CATTLE, FIELD AND BARLEY
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is Rāmacandra who in his Prakriyakaumudi gives the following example for the verb bhakṣayati denoting an act of himsā (I 394. 4).38: bhakṣayaty amatyam arīn rājā, 'the king makes his minister eat, i.e. eliminate, his enemies'. Whatever may have prompted him to thus radically change the example, the annoyance created by the lack of unequivocalness of Patañjali's example or the wish to go on his part back to the object language itself, etc., there can hardly be any doubt that Katyāyana, not to speak of Patanjali, did not think of such a metaphorical use of bhakṣayati.39
But it is not even necessary to enter into a discussion with Ramacandra or to insist that he has gone off the track. For, after all, what this study is exclusively concerned with is the examples as given by Patañjali on vārtt. 7 on Pan. 1. 4. 52 and their interpretation, and not the question, legitimate or not, if these examples meet in fact Katyāyana's intention. And as to the examples, it should by now be clear that there are only two interpretations which are at all worthy of considerration, namely those two given already by Kaiyața.
3.
Even a reader who does not at all keep a look-out for passages attesting the doctrine of the animateness of plants, will most probably tend to the opinion that the first of these two interpretations should be clearly given preference as unveiling what Patañjali had in mind when formulating these examples. One of the reasons is, of course, that only if they are understood in this way the
