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________________ On 'Anadyamano yad anannam atti' Chandogya Upanisad 4.3.7 M. A. Mehendale H. Luders' has very extensively dealt with the Samvargavidya of the Ch. Up. 4.1-3. There he has compared the Upanisad text with the parallel version from the Jaiminiya Upanisad Br. 3. 1-2. In his discussion of the relationship between the two passages Luders came to the conclusion that the teaching presented in the Ch. Up. is later than the one in the Jaim. Up. Br. He has also argued that, in all probability, the Upanisad version is directly based on the Brahmana version. However, in spite of this direct relationship, there are certain differences between the two texts. Luders has given satisfactory explanations of almost all these differences. In one respect, however, Luders felt puzzled. In the text of the Jaim. Up. Br., while replying to what the Brahmana, who begged food, had to say about the identity of the highest god?, Abhipratarin Kaksaseni said that he knew of a god who was even higher than the one known to the Brahmana since the god known to him (Abhipratarin) swallowed the god known to the Brahmana. This is expressed in the Jaim. Up. Br. as anadyamano yad adantam atti 'Who i.e. the Vata), while not being himself eaten, eats the eater' (i.e. the Prana). In the parallel passage of the Ch. Up., however, the above lines appears as anadyamano yad anannam atti 'Who while not being himself eaten, eats what is not food.'Luders says that it is difficult to find the reason for the change of adantam (Jaim. Up. Br.) to anannam (Ch. Up.)? It seems, however, possible to suggest a solution to the difficulty. In the Jaim. Up. Br. the expression used to denote Prana, 'individual breath,' is adantam, 'the one that eats'. This is an indirect way of referring to Prana. It is very likely that, in a different version of the Jaim. Up. Br., now lost to us, Prana was directly
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________________ 90 M. A. Mehendale Jambu-jyoti referred to by the word anantam 'one that breathes'. The last quarter of the stanza in that lost version, accordingly, could have read anadyamano yad anantam atti 'himself not being eaten, he (Vata) eats the one that breathes (Prana).' Our Ch. Up. stanza was based on this presumably lost version of the Jaim. Up. Br. and not on the one which we now possess. The word anantam of this version understandably, was changed to anannam. The change was not the result of a phonetic change (nt > nn), but, in all likelihood, was the result of a mistake committed by a copyist somewhere in the manuscript tradition. The change of nt to nn is quite conceivable in the Devanagari writing. Annotations : 1. Philologica Indica (Gottingen, 1940), pp. 361-390 (Zu den Upanisads. I. Die Sarvargavidya). 2. This, according to the Brahmana, was Prana. 3. This, according to Abhipratarin, was Vata. 4. Vata is said to eat up Prana, because the individual prana enters Vata after the death of a person. Cf. Luders., Phil. Ind., p. 383. 5. Which, in the Ch. Up., is put in the mouth of Saunaka Kapeya and not of Abhipratarin Kaksaseni. 6. For the explanation of anannam, see Luders, pp. 388-389. 7. "Schwerer ist es, fur die Anderung vom adantam zur anannam einen Grund zu finden"., Phil. Ind., pp. 385-386. 8. Luders refers to this possibility when he says ".. da ein grosser Teil der vedischen Literetur verloren gegangen ist...."Phil Ind., p. 383. 000