Makaranda Madhukar Anand Mahendale Festshrift

Author(s): M A Dhaky, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Page 213

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Krishna S. Arjunwadkar
Makaranda
context given above will make it clear that Samkara has introduced the said detail on the basis of his perfect knowledge of the sacrificial tradition and his sense of responsibility as a commentator. He in fact deserves to be praised for that.
As to human beings being named after animals etc., men are even today named after birds and plants / flowers even among culturally and educationally advanced sections of human society. The suffix 'Simha' (meaning a lion) is added to men's names for centuries in many an Indian community like the Sikhs. Jawaharlal Nehru was never found in public functions without a rose in his button hole. None but DPC would think that it was a totem or its survival. In ancient Indian literature, we find some ksatriya families tracing their origins to the Sun and the Moon (this belief perpetuated through historical times even to this day), and display them on the banners of their chariots etc. There is no reason why it should be kept outside the span of totemism. In fact, even poetry with innumerable comparisons from the world of animals and plants cannot escape the claim of totemism and primitive character. The logical conclusion is : we are all a primitive society and shall so remain to the end ! This position, incidentally, so perfectly tallies with that of Samkara who maintains that, in matters fundamental, all human beings behave like animals, following their instinctspašvādibhis cāvisesāt. (Brahmasūtrabhāsya, introduction). The only difference would be : while a Marxist will stop at instincts, śamkara goes deeper to trace the behaviour to a primordial cause, namely mistaking the identity of the Self as that of the non-Self.
What about the monkeys in the Rāmāyana ? Humans with monkey .totems, actual monkeys or primates humanized for poetic effect aimed at an element of miracle ? And what again about the animal characters in Aesop's fables and the Pañcatantra of Visnuśarman ? If DPC cannot see them, is it a case of 'judicial blindness' as Marx observes ? This literary tradition of representing human beings by animals for artistic purposes comes as close as the too well known Animal Farm' of our own times criticizing Communistic way of thinking.