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274
PRASÑA-UPANISHAD.
those in whom dwell penance, abstinence, and truth,
16. To them belongs that pure Brahma-world, to them, namely, in whom there is nothing crooked, nothing false, and no guile.'
SECOND QUESTION. 1. Then Bhârgava Vaidarbhi asked him: 'Sir, How many gods 1 keep what has thus been created, how many manifest this ?, and who is the best of them?'
2. He replied : ‘The ether is that god, the wind, fire, water, earth, speech, mind, eye, and ear. These, when they have manifested (their power), contend and say: We (each of us) support this body and keep it
34 Then Prâna (breath, spirit, life), as the best, said to them: Be not deceived, I alone, dividing myself fivefold, support this body and keep it.
4. They were incredulous; so he, from pride, did as if he were going out from above. Thereupon,
i Devâh, powers, organs, senses. . Their respective power.
* This is Sankara's explanation, in which bâna is taken to mean the same as sarîra, body. But there seems to be no authority for such a meaning, and Ânandagiri tries in vain to find an etymological excuse for it. Bâna or Vâna generally means an arrow, or, particularly in Brâhmana writings, a harp with many strings. I do not see how an arrow could be used as an appropriate simile here, but a harp might, if we take avashtabhya in the sense of holding the frame of the instrument, and vidhârayâmah in the sense of stretching and thereby modulating it.
On this dispute of the organs of sense, see Brih. Up. VI, 1, p. 201; Khând. Up. V, 1 (S. B. E., vol. i, p. 72).
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