India, April 17 -- By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik - Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist

Across India, the fish is a sacred symbol - all kinds of fish. The salt-water fish (Surmai), fresh-water fish (Goonch), fish of ponds (Rohu) and rivers (Mahseer, dolphins), fish of deltas that travel upstream to spawn (Palla, Hilsa). Fish is linked with autonomy as it cannot be tamed, and with fertility and prosperity. Brahmins who ate fish referred to it as "water-plants" (jala-taru).

In Buddhist Jataka, Buddha once turned himself into a red fish and offered his flesh to people to save them from starvation and cure them of a skin disease. In another story, Buddha felt sorry for a male-fish caught in a net. Instead of worrying about its own death, th...