Suman K. Sharma
The wise hold that from the tiniest microbes invisible to the human eye to the giant blue whales, we all are the offspring of the Param Pita Parmatma-God, the Supreme Father. Science too has conceptualized that all living organisms could have descended from the LUCA-Last Universal Common Ancestor.
But who rules this diverse Animal Kingdom? Man, of course; say both Hinduism and Christianity. The ancient rishis, in fact, went on to conflate the idea of God with the image of man: “The Man has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. He pervaded the earth on all sides and extended beyond it as far as ten fingers….” (PurusaSukta, or the Hymn of Man-The Rig Veda by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty). The Holy Bible is categorical in placing man over and above the rest of the beings:
Then God said, “And we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small.”
Genesis 1, 26.
The two sacred texts that grant supremacy to humanity could not have been written more than 3,500 years ago. The Rig Veda was composed during 1500-600 BC, and ‘(the) Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, was written over a period of centuries, roughly from 1200 to 165 BC.’ Measured on the timeline of the evolution of the species Homo sapiens, that period appears not too distant from modern times. What is a span of a mere three and a half thousand years, or even ten thousand years, to millions of years? Our ancestors of the Vedic times had already made the mental and spiritual, if not material, advancements than any of our contemporaries. They could conceive the inconceivable.
If, then, a meaningful view has to be taken of Homo sapiens vis-à-vis other species of the Animal Kingdom, we would have to look back at that remote past when our archaic ancestors thrived under all the constraints that affected other species, and maybe some more. In 1967, Desmond Morris, a British zoologist, made such a study in his highly popular book, The Naked Ape. Morris dryly points out that of the 193 species of primates, man is the only one who does not have a natural coat of hair over his body-hence the sobriquet, ‘the naked ape.’ This naked ape started his tortuous journey on the planet as a small, insect-eating primate, skulking from one tree branch to another to avoid the more powerful competitors of the arboreal world.
Glitches Galore
The hypothetical LUCA, father of us all the sensate beings, does not seem to have accorded any special favours to the creature that was to end up as man. Deprived of the fur coat of a bear or a monkey, he was exposed to the extremes of weather. His transformation from a four-legged to a two-legged animal was a mixed blessing. His descent from the arboreal habitat to the hard ground would have been no less trying than Adam’s fall from the Garden of Eden.
Forget for a while the fate of our remote ancestor. Even today’s man, when left to his puny bodily resources, enjoys no exclusive advantage in comparison to other species. As to his physical strength, the African bush elephant can lift and carry 6000 kg of weight. Eagles and hawks have eight times more visual acuity than him. Man’s ability to walk on ‘stilt-like’ legs is not a unique feat-other primates such as gibbons, gorillas, and chimpanzees also possess this skill. Humble creatures such as rats, mice, lizards, and even cockroaches walk on their hind limbs out of habit or when faced with life-threatening situations. And if man can communicate with those of his own, so do the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field. Whales sing, and birds do too. Wolves howl. Parrots and macaws mimic human language. Peacocks put on a visual display to charm their mates. Great apes use body language to convey their intent.
Yet, at the end of the day, man, and not any other beast, is the master of all that he surveys. How has it come about? Are we special in spite of our failings and frailties? That is something to ponder.
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