________________
I ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 23.
in the sense of a certain modification of air is better established in common as well as in Vedic language. Hence there arises a doubt whether in the passage under discussion the word prâna denotes Brahman or (ordinary) breath. In favour of which meaning have we then to decide?
Here the pûrvapakshin maintains that the word must be helai to denote the fivefold vital breath, which is a peculiar modification of wind (or air); because, as has been remarked already, that sense of the word prâna is the better established one.—But no, an objector will say, just as in the case of the preceding Sætra, so here also Brahman is meant, on account of characteristic marks being mentioned; for here also a complementary passage gives us to understand that all beings spring from and merge into prâna; a process which can take place in connexion with the highest Lord only.---This objection, the pûrvapakshin replies, is futile, since we sce that the beings enter into and proceed from the principal vital air also. For Scripture makes the following statement (Sat. Br. X, 3, 3, 6), 'When man sleeps, then into breath indeed speech merges, into breath the eye, into breath the ear, into breath the mind; when he awakes then they spring again from breath alone.' What the Veda here states is, moreover, a matter of observation, for during sleep, while the process of breathing goes on uninterruptedly, the activity of the sense organs is interrupted and again becomes manifest at the time of awaking only. And as the sense organs are the essence of all material beings, the complementary passage which speaks of the merging and emerging of the beings can be reconciled with the principal vital air also. Moreover, subsequently to prâna being mentioned as the divinity of the prastáva the sun and food are designated as the divinities of the udgîtha and the pratihara. Now as they are not Brahman, the prâna also, by parity of reasoning, cannot be Brahman.
To this argumentation the author of the Sûtras replies : For the same reason prâna-that means: on account of the presence of characteristic marks—which constituted the reason stated in the preceding Satra—the word präna also
Digitized by Google
