Deer Hunting

Published on 11th December, 2020, in Economic Times. In the forest, chasing the deer (mriga) creates a path (marga). Hence in Vedic texts, deer embodies a goal: the object of desire. In the Manusmriti, kings are warned not to indulge too much in deer sport. In ancient India, hunting deer was a major pastime and the kings would spend a lot of their time in the forest, enjoying the thrill of the chase, rather than focussing on boring governance, like politicians preferring the thrill of elections to the mundane world of administration, and CEOs chasing the next acquisition rather than building resilient systems. In Vedic ..