Sanskrit Pranabhrt Or What Supports what

Author(s): A Wezler
Publisher: A Wezler

Page 8

400
A. WELLER
SANSKRIT PRANALARI
01
hierarchy of living beings the lowest one of which is the lizard or chameleon starts from man at the top. But by what part of the passage is this indicated? Is there not, on the contrary, found here a statement which quite clearly points to the opposite direction, viz. that man is not included here in the category of prdnabhrts? What I have in mind is the phrase pränar na vicchindyad; for should we really assume that the author thought of the possibility of homicide and deemed it hence necessary to forbid it during the night of the new moon? And, finally, one should not. as Böhtlingk apparently did in that he renders pränabhrt here by "lebendes Wesen 8. be misled by the juxtaposition of pranabhrt and pränam: To speak of the breath of a pránabhrt does not by any means imply that this word characterizes living beings as "bearing breath within themselves"! This seems to have been Bohtlingk's and Rotli's central error, and to be the ultimate reason of entry 2) s.v. pranabhrt in their Dictionary. That is to say, in this case, too, we should not deviate from "animals (in general)"; and thus this passage rather testifies to the first step in the broadening of the meaning of the compound in question.
Similarly, the last of the Vedic passages, viz. Kauss. 135.9, does not stand critical examination, i.e. is not sufficiently clear as a proof of pranabhrt being used in the sense of "living being including man)'. For it reads thus:
not, however, by any means imply that the compound has to be taken here to mean "bearing breath within oneself"! On the contrary, there is sufficient proof that the Vedic thinkers were fully aware of the fact that the particular animals subsumed under the concept pranabhrt, and not only man himself whose life they are destined to support, are in principle equally, though to a lesser degree, endowed with prana, "breath", and the other pränas. This is most clearly shown by some of the passages studied in sections 2.1 and 2.2. It is in the case of SB 11.2.6.2 hence not at all necessary to assume that pranabhịt is not used in the sense of animal", or rather, in view of nimişád yad éjati, of certain animals, i.e. livestock; but it is on the other hand possible that the author has deliberately played with the two words präna and prånabhrt or wished to explain that the latter are able to fulfil their task of supporting breath only because they themselves breathe, are alive because of constant breathing.
"The observations made with regard to this passage are of relevance for the interpretation of SB 9.2.1.15, too, where it is said to wit, of the pranah, that naivd té diví na prthivyám yád praṇabhít tásmints id fti. For this is clearly a statement about the location of the pranas; but we are again not justified in drawing the conclusion that the compound pränabhrt is used here in order to express that the pränas reside in the living being denoted by it, or, in other words, that these living beings are called pränabhrt because of their having these pranas, or "bearing them "within themselves', just as there is no real need to assume that the author intended a statement about all the loci of the pranas and hence thought of human beings also. On the other hand, I don't want to overstate my position and entirely deny the possibility - to some it may still appear to be even a more probable interpretation that (here as well as at SB 11.2.6.2) "man" is intended, too, then however only marginally. This holds equally good for at least the first of the two passages now to be discussed where human beings, if at all included in the expression pränabhrt, are again not, in my view, the centre of attention.
Similarly I am reluctant to agree with Böhtlingk's interpretation of pranabht at SB 14.4.3.22 - BĀU 1.5.14: sa esa samvatsarah prajapatih sodafakalah tasya rdtraya eva paricadasa kalah dhin vaivasya sodasi kala / saratribhir evd captiryate apa caksiyate / 50 'mavdsydm rätrim etayd sodasya kalaya sarvam idam pränabhrd anupravifya tatah pratar jayate / tasmad etām ratrim pranabhrtah pränat ha vicchindys api krkalásasyaitasya eva devataya apacityai Il. It is, of course, true that not only animals, but also human beings sleep at night and that a god can therefore be conceived of as entering them, in a particular night, and being born from them again at dawn, etc. But what counts is not that what is possible, or what we Western interpreters of the modern age regard as possible, but what the text itself says, and
in nler i rrininly nossible. in theory at least, that the
bahavo 'sya 69 pašā vitatäh puthivyām asamkhyeya aparyanta anantah/ yabhir vam an abhinidadhāti praninám yān kānisceman pranabhrtām jighamsan //
Most of the arguments advanced by me in the preceding discussion of BAU 1.5.14 apply to this passage, too, but I don't think it is necessary to repeat them. Really new is only the juxtaposition of pranin and pränabhrt. But can we be sure that these terms are here exactly of the same extension? The answer cannot but be in the negative; for, even il pranin means "(breathing) living being including man)', it is not only possible that pranabhrt refers to the partially different group of "animals in general)" or "livestock", but there is also greater likelihood that the latter expression is not semantically a mere, and hence redundant, repetition of the expression preceding it in the relative clause.
5. Returning now, at the end of these remarks, to Pan. 5.1.129, it has to be admitted that the result of the rather long exploratory tour for the solution of the problem posed by this sütra is rather disappointing. For, we are still not in a position to instantly decide what is meant by prinabhrt here, because in addition to the semantically closely related cxpression pranin what has to be taken into account is the similar