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344
MAITRÂYANA-BRAHMANA-UPANISHAD.
Om), when there is breathing, takes the place of the internal heat, free from all brightness? This is like the action of smoke; for when there is a breath of air, the smoke, first rising to the sky in one column, follows afterwards every bough, envelopes it and takes its shape. It is like throwing salt into water), like heating ghee 3 The Veda comes and goes like the dissolving view of a master-magicianAnd here they quote:
Why then is it called “like lightning ?” Because as soon as it comes forth (as Om) it lights up the whole body. Therefore let a man worship that boundless light by the syllable Om.
(1) The man in the eye who abides in the right eye, he is Indra, and his wife abides in the left eye5.
(2) The union of these two takes place in the cavity within the heart, and the ball of blood which is there, that is indeed the vigour and life of these two.
(3) There is a channel going from the heart so far, and fixed in that eye; that is the artery for both of them, being one, divided into two.
1 This seems to be the meaning adopted by the commentator; but may it not be, sending forth brightness ?
2 The simile is not very clear. The light of Brahman is below the sphere of fire in the body. That sphere of fire becoming heated, the light of Brahman becomes manifest. When the fire has been fanned by the wind of sonant breath, then the light of Brahman, embodying itself in the wind and the fire, manifests itself first in the mere sound of Om, but afterwards, checked by throat, palate, &c., it assumes the form of articulate letters, and ends by becoming the Veda in its many branches.
8 As these are outwardly changed, without losing their nature, thus the light of Brahman, though assuming the different forms of the Veda, remains itself.
* See before, VII, 1. • See Brih. Up. IV, 2, 2, 3, where Indra is explained as Indha.
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