Vanaspati: Plants and Plant-Life as in Indian Treatises and Traditions c6.4

c6.4

“Transmission of specific characters—what parental characters are transmitted to offspring.—The question is raised in *Charaka*² (and earlier still in the *Brāhmanas*) how specific characters are transmitted—why the offspring is of the same species as the parental organism, say, the human or bovine species, the equine species, or the Aśwattha species (Ficus religiosa)—*Sankara*, *Brihadāraṇyaka-bhāshya*. Species (योनयः) may be compared to so many moulds, as it were, into which the ovum is cast, even as molten metals are cast in moulds. This is of course only an illustrative analogy; the cause has to be investigated.