We have discussed that this body is the field of activity. We are acting according to the body. I am the same person, but when I had my boyhood body or childhood body, I was acting differently. This child, they are acting now some way, but when they will get another body, they will act in a different way. Similarly, not only this human form of body, but there are 8,400,000 different types of bodies. We have explained several times, jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi (Padma Purāṇa): "In the water there are 900,000 different forms of body." How many do we know? We do not know all the details. We know there are different types of fishes, and say 100,000 we have seen or experimented, the zoologist. But from the Vedic literature we understand that there are 900,000 forms of body within the water.
So this is called Vedic knowledge. Perfect information is given there. Doesn't say 901 or 950. Exactly, 900,000. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi. Then next, sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati. Then, after aquatic, when the water dries, the vegetation comes out, and that vegetation grow gradually into plants, trees, herbs and so many, big, big trees. Here we have got big, big trees. So from aquatic life they have come to this vegetable life. And one tree standing for thousands of years. They cannot move an inch. This is also life. There is life. The trees, these banyan trees, they are making their arrangement how to stand fixed-up very strong. Nobody can move. The same struggle for existence is going on. As we are struggling to make our position secure, similarly, the trees are also making their position secure. The cats and dogs, they are also making attempt to make their position secure. This is called struggle for existence. So from this tree, just try to remember that there are 900,000 species of aquatics.
We get information from śāstra, there is a fish which is called timiṅgala which swallows big, big whales, just like big fish swallows a small fish. This is struggle for existence. Jīvo jīvasya jīvanam. Phalgūni mahatāṁ tatra jīvo jīvasya jīvanam (SB 1.13.47). The natural law is that ahastāni sahastānām: "The animals which has no hands"—that means four-legged animals; they have got legs, no hand—"so they are food for animals with two legs and two hands." That means human being. Human being is also animal, more powerful, more intelligent than the lower animals. So the śāstra says ahastāni, "The animals who hasn't got hands, they are food for the animals with two hands." Ahastāni sahastānām and apadāni catuṣ-padām: "And the animals or the living entities which cannot move, apadāni. . ." Pada means legs. Just like the trees, plants, grass, they cannot move; they have no leg. They have got leg, but they cannot move. They are eating through the legs. Therefore they are called pādapa, means "collecting waters through the leg." Just these trees, they are drinking water from within the earth with their legs. Therefore they push their roots very deep to find out where is water. And if you put little water on the root of the tree, they live. They drink water. They are standing on the riverside drinking water and becoming very flourished. But although they are drinking the same water, still, they are differently constituted, the different fruits, different flowers. This is God's creation, we have to understand that.