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MAITRÂYANA-BRAHMANA-UPANISHAD.
vessel (apâna) on the Upânusu-vessel 1 (prâna), and between these two the self-resplendent (Self) produced heat? This heat is the purusha (person), and this purusha is Agni Vaisvânara. And thus it is said elsewhere 3 : "Agni Vaisvânara is the fire within man by which the food that is eaten is cooked, i.e. digested. Its noise is that which one hears, if one covers one's ears. When a man is on the point of departing this life, he does not hear that noise.”
Now he 4, having divided himself fivefold, is hidden in a secret place (buddhi), assuming the nature of mind, having the prânas as his body, resplendent, having true concepts, and free like ether 5. Feeling even thus that he has not attained his object, he thinks from within the interior of the heart , “Let me enjoy objects.” Therefore, having first broken open these five apertures (of the senses), he enjoys the objects by means of the five reins. This means that these perceptive organs (ear, skin, eye, tongue, nose) are his reins; the active organs (tongue (for speaking), hands, feet, anus, generative organ) his horses; the body his chariot, the mind the charioteer, the whip being the temperament. Driven by that whip, this body goes round like the
1 Two sacrificial vessels (graha) placed on either side of the stone on which the Soma is squeezed, and here compared to the Prâna and Apâna, between which the Self (kaitanyâtmâ) assumes heat.
2 M. reads tayor antarâle kaushnyam prâsuvat. * See Brihacaranyaka Up. V, 9; Khând. Up. III, 13, 8.
* The Vaisvânara or purusha, according to the commentator, but originally the Pragâpati, who had made himself like air, and divided himself into five vital airs.
6 Thus the atmâ, with his own qualities and those which he assumes, becomes a living being.
6 M. reads esho 'sya hridantare tishthann.
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