ABSTRACT
This chapter delves into the discussion on the exploration of parallels between human society and the “society” of bees by Aristotle and his successors, and it ponders over the shift that was recorded from Aristotle’s approach of observational empiricism to his successors catering to allegorical generalizations. The emphasis was re-shifted from universal allegory to find the dissimilarities as we are looking at the basis of a similarity. Such insight was further emboldened by the likes of Bacon, rooting for a mix of the experimental and the rational faculties. Pondering along those lines, the chapter finally talks about the recognition of an act, such as lila (playful) creativity, and discusses that, as the Indian theory is about keeping the outer expressions in harmony with the inner primordial unity, it creates a disengagement between the meaning of Shiva’s dance and how he understands it for himself, but the Western speculation supports Shiva when he dances playfully, aiming for destroying the primordial structures and creating a new world.
