Metaphors Associated with Branching

Someone may raise the question as to how such a wide range of phenomena and behavior could be incorporated into this static model. In the Puranas, we have characters moving, fighting, begetting children, etc. There could be many interactions between subject and object besides of course a large variety of phenomena and physical processes. How could all these be possibly represented through this model? The answer: by means of the “behavior” of the constituent units of the cardio-respiratory apparatus. This “behavior,” from the perspective of the philosophy underlying this model, would be the manifestation of the supreme lord’s creative activity.

The branching of the conduits

Metaphors Associated with Branching

A key design feature of the respiratory system is branching. The branching of the bronchial tree along with the pulmonary arterial and venous conduits provides the author of the Puranas endowed with rich imagination with a vast storehouse of options to fit into his narrative. As one moves from the hilum of the lungs to its distal ends, the bronchial conduits go on branching in patterns that are held to be either dichotomous (albeit of irregular kind) or monopodial. When the anatomist "travels" in this direction (from root to distal end), it is the movement of creation--the unfolding of the world-lotus.

Branching and division of the bronchi and the arterial and venous conduits can be used to translocate a variety of phenomena, interactions and activities; and it supplies the author of the Purana with an extremely wide array. Specifically, it may be used to indicate, inter alia:

1. Expansion, increase in parts: this is applicable mostly in the case of entities that have parts such as the sun and the moon (composed of rays).

2. Emaciation: e.g. Ananta became all skin and bones when he visited Puskara and other places.

3. Slaying: as in the case of the Asuras etc.

4. Crushing.

5. Disintegration.

6. Proliferation: one entity may divide itself and become many (multiplicity).

7. The begetting of children.

8. Dissipation, vaporization.

9. Yawning (separation of mouth) etc.

10. Subduing, humbling, diminution of status.

We have also to keep in mind that the ancient anatomists considered the entire lung as a kind of coordinate system for time. This is still being deciphered by this author but it is quite apparent that each point on the bronchial tree starting from the hilum, the origin of this system (also representing the origin of creation of the three lokas of bhu, bhuvar and svar?), is also a point in time.

By following this ingenious strategy the author of the Purana succeeds in translocating the phenomena of the external world and also the behavior of entities. While the various anatomical components and structures themselves stand for the entities of the world, it is their design features that represent the behavior of entities and the interactions between them.

Anatomical unit → External entity

Anatomical feature → Behavior, interaction, phenomenal change