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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
The Upanişads
31
animation or liveliness. According to the story of the deities (speech, eye, ear, mind) contending with one another for supremacy, went out of the body and the body lay without breathing, withered, like a log of wood. The body could not function when those deities entered the body one by one; but it rose again and began to function when the prāņa entered into it. Thus the deities recognised the pre-eminence of the prāņa and began to look upon it as the conscious soul (prajñātman).' This story clearly proves by the methods of agreement and difference that the human body cannot live and function in the absence of this inner essence - the sima, which is its reality. It is therefore, natural to think that the prána without which life is impossible and which is the only and the most important criterion of life must be the soul of an individual. The soul thus came to be identified with the breath or the principle of vitality or the prāņa. Continuing in the same vein Pratardana said -- "Man lives deprived of speech, for we see dumb people. Man lives deprived of sight, for, we see blind people. Man lives deprived of hearing, for, we see deaf people. Man lives deprived of mind, for we see infants. Man lives deprived of his arms, deprived of his legs, for we see it thus. But Prāna alone is the 'conscious Self' (Prajñātman) and having laid hold on this body it makes it rise up.... What is sgt (self-consciousness) that is prāņa, what is prāņa that is prajñā, for together they
Max Müller (Tr.): The Upanisads : Kaust. Up. 21.4, pp. 290, 291.
For Private And Personal
| SR No. | 020053 |
| Book Title | tman_and_moksa |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | G N Joshi |
| Publisher | Gujarat University |
| Publication Year | 1965 |
| Total Pages | 901 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 12 MB |