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, the male-fish was worried for his wife who may be thinking that he eloped with another fish. Only the Buddha knew the truth: that the female-fish who had escaped the net had deliberately not warned her mate about the trap. She wanted to be free of him. The male fish was trapped internally by his passions and externally by the net.