Hindu Medicine c8.184

c8.184

dynasty. It seems that it was necessary for symbolic reasons that the emperor feed upon this bird, the mount and animal-representation of the war-god Skanda-Kārttikeya of pre-Aryan origin; the flesh of the peacock presumably was believed to contain the very substance which had the peculiar power to sustain the energy of the warlike nature of the imperial family; “ and even this peacock,” the emperor Aśoka boasts, having turned Buddhist and pacifist after sanguinary conquests, “ even this peacock is no longer killed every day.”