Real Happenings Not Metaphors

 The following are literal happenings not metaphors:

1. splitting, branching, dividing (dichotomizing)

2. Piercing

3. Changing, transmutation, transformation

4. Supplying, distributing [in the case of the bronchial arteries]

Not only are the entities themselves real but also their anatomical (and also, physiological) behavior is real. The tales of the Puranas, therefore, although certainly not history, are not myths either or something completely fictitious. They are founded in reality. 

A set of entities with certain properties and features does exist. The bronchial conduits along with the other structures do emanate from one another, divide at each level and travel through the sphere of the lung. The neural entities do pierce these conduits and the flow of deoxygenated blood does transform into an oxygenated flow. A set of fundamental truths regarding the peculiar structure and design of these anatomical structures (and their features) is woven, therefore, alongwith metaphor, into a rich narrative. The poet-anatomist simply has allowed metaphor to accrete and accumulate around these core scientific facts.

 

For example, the change or the transformation of the deoxygenated blood into the oxygenated flow may be used to construct the story of transformation of the nature of a being from a demonic to a benign one. It may serve as the pivot around which the story of creation and destruction of the world revolves, with the mutually opposing character of the two flows representing these two stages. Similarly, in the case of substances, this fact may be used to weave a tale of magical, alchemical transmutation involving loss and gain of properties (which is really happening).