________________
On ‘Anadyamano yad anannam atti'
Chāndogya Upanişad 4.3.7
M. A. Mehendale
H. Lüders' has very extensively dealt with the Saṁvargavidyā 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 Lüders 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 Brāhmana version. However, in spite of this direct relationship, there are certain differences between the two texts. Lüders has given satisfactory explanations of almost all these differences.
In one respect, however, Lüders felt puzzled. In the text of the Jaim. Up. Br., while replying to what the Brāhmana, who begged food, had to say about the identity of the highest god?, Abhipratārin Käksaseni said that he knew of a god who was even higher than the one known to the Brāhmana since the god known to him (Abhipratārin) swallowed the god known to the Brāhmana. This is expressed in the Jaim. Up. Br. as anadyamāno yad adantam atti 'Who i.e. the Vāta), while not being himself eaten, eats the eater' (i.e. the Prāna).
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.'Lüders 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 Prāna, 'individual breath,' is adantam, 'the one that eats'. This is an indirect way of referring to Prāna. It is very likely that, in a different version of the Jaim. Up. Br., now lost to us, Prāna was directly
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
