The Return of Dragon of Mohenjo-Daro

Meaningful

[Image: Pashupati seal. Source: Wikipedia]

"Thank you. Let us conclude our examination. This question is to everyone here. Is there a common point among the answers we got? Anybody want to summarize the answers?"

The warrior said: "I will tell some of them. The historian talked about patriotism and enemies. The sergeant talked about enemy activities. I talked about jihad against infidels."

The sergeant said: "Let me add some others. The scientist talked about tigers and the balance in nature. You talked about your wife and your daughter. The historian talked about sharing knowledge with others."

The historian said: "And my friend talked about how the asteroid brought us together and how it will effect biodiversity. That is pretty much all we talked. I cannot see anything common though."

At that moment everyone was desperately confused. Even the sergeant and the warrior felt a deep grief as if their voluntary objective was to come to Mohenjo-Daro like the other people.

The girl broke the silence: "Dear historian. Can I look at the Pashupati seal replica?"

"Sure."

The girl grabbed the seal and looked at it for a while. There was a man sitting on a throne at the center who looked like a person with three faces each looking at a different direction. There were figures like men and women, a goat, a rhino, a cow with huge horns, fish, an elephant and a tiger. And the bottom right corner of the seal was broken.

The girl said: "You had told that the man was a symbol of the lord of animals. We can interpret its meaning because we see him sitting on a throne surrounded by animals. If there was only a man without any figures around, the seal would lose its meaning. I can see a common point between the seal and our examination now. We have been doing the same thing since the beginning of history. We can only interpret the meaning of a thing by referencing some other thing. Think about the things we just talked; enemies, relatives, sharing knowledge with others, and the balance in nature. I want to clarify it with some examples."

Five adults were all ears breathlessly listening to the girl. They were so lost in thought that they did not even realize how much time had passed and they had even forgotten about the asteroid. The Dragon of Mohenjo-Daro had already entered the atmosphere as she finished her last sentence: "War has no meaning if there are no enemies, love has no meaning without loved ones, knowledge has no meaning without people to share, nature has no meaning without biodiversity, and the man on the throne has no meaning without the animals."