The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c11.20

c11.20

The belief in animal and plant souls, and even souls of inanimate objects (fetish), is based upon the same sort of simple logic. Animals have both life's breath and some measure of reason. Nomads, cattle-raisers, hunters, inhabitants of forest and sea-coast are thrown into intimate intercourse, each with particular classes of animals whose mental resources are not only obvious, but often clash with man's interests. Clear up into the high literature of beast fable and fairy-tale survives the folk's very real belief in reasoning, soul-inhabited animals: see Reynard the Fox and Bre'r Rabbit. Primitive man, too, in the search after his own origin has often blundered into the notion that man is descended from one or the other animal. This has given rise to the very important religious, political, and economic institutions known as Totemism.