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CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
would be instantly killed by the elephant. He looked in other directions and saw this well. He thought, 'This elephant is sure to kill me, I may perhaps save myself by jumping into the well.' Off he jumps into the well and gets hold of one of the branches of the banyan tree which you see in the well. At the bottom he saw that huge boa ready to swallow him; on the four sides of the well at the bottom he saw four snakes hissing at him. The two rats are eating away the trunk of the tree and from the honey-comb at the top of the branch some drops of honey are falling on his lips. Just at this time, a minister of religion happens to come there and offers him help to rescue him from the well, but the fellow seems quite satisfied with his lot while having the sweet taste of honey drops. He does not realise the fact that the whole trunk of the tree will be eaten away by the rats and then he would have no support at all; he would have to fall down to be swallowed by the cobra. This whole drama is represented in this picture." I said to my father "Well, but what is the meaning of all this drania ?” He said, "It is all symbolical. This man in the well in this forest is the ordinary worldly man. The elephant that ran after him is death. The well is this earthly life. The boa is the symbol of the lowest state of existence. The four snakes are the symbols of anger, vanity, deceit and greediness. The trunk of the banyan tree is the short duration of our earthly life. The two rats, white and black, represent time, the bright half and dark half of the month which exhaust our earthly duration. The bees in the honeycomb are the organs of sense and the honey-drops represent the sensual pleasures. And the minister represents the true religion. So the whole thing comes to this. The common man of the world, thinking that his life will be cut off at any time by death satisfies himself by enjoying the sensual pleasures derived from the senses and does not care to receive the truths offered by true philosophy, he being influenced by sentiments of anger, vanity, deceit and greediness represented by the four snakes."
I was perfectly astonished at this explanation of the picture
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