From Snake and Peacock

And then a Voice from within spoke to Adi and told him: 'That is not all. These two creatures are both endowed with life: that is their determining factor. They fight because each has settled for his own kind of life, thinking it to be the realization of a true status. One, however, guards treasure and cannot use it. The other reflects beauty, a treasure, but cannot transform himself with it. In spite of their not having taken advantage of what was open to them, they yet symbolize it, for those who can see and hear.'