The elephant's footprints

[Mikael Aktor]

Dear list members,

A collegue of mine has come accross the following passage in one of 
Clifford Geertz' (American anthropologist) latest essays:

"A sage is squatted before a real elephant that is standing right in 
front of him. The sage is saying, 'This is not an elephant.' Only later, 
as the elephant turns and begins to lumber away, does a doubt begin to 
arise in the sage's mind about whether there might not be an elephant 
around after all. Finally, when the elephant has altogether disappeared 
from view, the sage looks down at the footprints the beast has left 
behind and declares with certainty, 'An elephant was here.'" (Cl. Geertz, 
_After the Fact_, Cambridge 1995, p.167).

The story is supposed to be taken from an episode in Kalidasa' Sakuntala. 
My colleque refers to the following translation in Barbara S. Miller, 
_Theater of Memory: The Plays of Kalidasa_, Columbia University Press: 
New York 1984, p.174, where the king says, among other things:

"When I saw the ring, I remembered that I had married his daughter. This 
is all so strange! Like one who doubts the existence of an elephant who 
walks in front of him but feels convinced by seeing footprints, my mind 
has taken strange turns."

Now, what my collegue wants to know is whether this simile of the sage and
the elephant is a reference to a common known story, which might exist in
more details in other texts, and in this case, which texts?, or, if it
only an isolated metaphor in Kalidasa's play. 

Can the Kalidasa experts help?

Mikael Aktor, research assistent

New address:
Study of Religions, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Århus C, Denmark.
E-mail: aktor at teologi.aau.dk

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Bangertsgade 9 st tv, DK 2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark.
E-mail: aktor at post8.tele.dk