It is rather the ego of man that he thinks he owns the world. Strange theories have developed since the very beginning of cultural and religious development.
Two major religions of the world talk of the first man and the first woman—Adam and Eve in Christianity and Adam and Hava in Muslim religion—who took shape out of the pleasure of the Almighty who kept them in the beautiful garden of Eden or Adun as it is called in Urdu. Among Hindus too there is a belief that after Pralaya (deluge) it was Manu who brought life to exist on this planet.
All religious preceptors have preached that the world is meant for man. They talk of communion between man and God. But Science has exploded this myth that it was not man who owned the world in the beginning. Man developed physically as we find him at a very late stage. The planet started with micro life. There is a period of millions of years even between the existence of the micro life and the huge dinosaur who owned the world and ruled over it.
But Nature has rather been cruel to this animal world for which actually everything in the world was meant. It bestowed man with a developed brain that it did not develop in any other creature. This partiality of Nature made him Homosapiens. It was only man who could think and plan about his existence and welfare polluting the land, the space and the seas that nature had made for all. His own creations may one day go against him. But now he owns the world and is the master of all that he surveys. He feels that all the creatures on the Earth and even beyond the Earth are meet for him.
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The ego of ownership has made man the cruelest animal in the world. He builds palatial buildings and big cities on the abodes of small creatures like ants and other burrow dwellers. They are all meant to die for his facilities. Animals are sacrificed at the altar of Gods in temples to please the deity. In certain religions they are sacrificed on a particular occasion being considered dearest to man. What hypocrisy?
Nature made vegetation that is meant for all living beings. But man felt that all the animals are meant for him. He killed elephant for its tusks, deer for its horns, a large number of animals for their hide for shoes, decoration and dresses. He boiled living pregnant sheep to secure ‘pashmina’ from the foetus. People take pride in having ‘pashmina’ shawls. He killed musk dear to have musk from his stomach. He kills a large number of animals for his food so that increasing in number they may not own the world back from him.
The modern world has seen man surpassing even all the norms of his own culture. Medical world has made its mansions on the blood and torture of these mute creatures that man thinks his property. Monkeys, rabbits, rats, dogs, cats and other small animals, birds and fishes are used for experiments in laboratories.
The whole world denounces the killing of Jews in gas chambers by Hitler. But the sophisticated saviours of man paralyze and torture animals on ultra modern tables with ultra modern equipments. They kill tortuously millions of animals to prepare medicines, nail polish, lipstick, floor polish and a number of other things. He feels that all these creatures are meant for him.
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Man has evolved strange theories for his own selfish ends. “Jeevo jeevasaya bhojanam’ i.e. one living being is the food of another living creature. Bigger fish eats the smaller one. That is how nature keeps the balance in the world. Smaller creatures are meant for the bigger creatures. Does man think himself the biggest fish and all other creatures (even the elephant) the smaller fish? Even if we accept the theory let him kill and eat other animals as is common in the animal world where one animal kills the other when it is hungry.
Man does not kill others to satisfy his hunger. He kills them in different ways; he has a fancy for all this for he still believes that all are meant for him and him alone. Who will remind him of the doomsday after which the animal world would claim earth back from man and he may be meant for them.