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PRASÑA-UPANISHAD.
4. He replied: 'Pragâpati (the lord of creatures) was desirous of creatures (pragâh). He performed penance1, and having performed penance, he produces a pair, matter (rayi) and spirit (prâna), thinking that they together should produce creatures for him in many ways.
52. The sun is spirit, matter is the moon. All this, what has body and what has no body, is matter, and therefore body indeed is matter.
6. Now Aditya, the sun, when he rises, goes toward the East, and thus receives the Eastern spirits into his rays. And when he illuminates the South, the West, the North, the Zenith, the Nadir, the intermediate quarters, and everything, he thus receives all spirits into his rays.
7. Thus he rises, as Vaisvânara, (belonging to all men,) assuming all forms, as spirit, as fire. This has been said in the following verse:
83. (They knew) him who assumes all forms, the golden“, who knows all things, who ascends highest, alone in his splendour, and warms us; the thousandrayed, who abides in a hundred places, the spirit of all creatures, the Sun, rises.
9. The year indeed is Pragâpati, and there are two paths thereof, the Southern and the Northern. Now those who here believe in sacrifices and pious gifts as work done, gain the moon only as their
1 Or he meditated; see Upanishads, vol. I, p. 238, n. 3.
· Sankara explains, or rather obscures, this by saying that the sun is breath, or the eater, or Agni, while matter is the food, namely, Soma.
: Cf. Maitr. Up. VI, 8.
• Harinam is explained as rasmimantam, or as harati sarveshâm prâninâm âyûmshi bhaumân vâ rasân iti harinah. I prefer to take it in the sense of yellow, or golden.
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