The Brahma Sutra · Book 2: Non-Contradiction · Pada 4 · The senses and prana

The third pada cleared the texts about space and the elements of contradiction; the fourth does the same for the pranas, the word here covering the eleven organs, five of knowledge, five of action and the mind, with the chief prana treated separately from 2.4.8. The creation chapters pass them over: “it sent forth fire” (Chandogya 6.2.3), “from that Self sprang space” (Taittiriya 2.1). One text sets them before creation: “non-being was this in the beginning; what was that non-being? the rishis were that non-being; who are those rishis? the pranas are the rishis” (Shatapatha Brahmana 6.1.1.1). Others give them an origin: “as small sparks come forth from fire, so all the pranas come forth from this Self” (Brihadaranyaka 2.1.20); “from him is born prana, mind and all the organs” (Mundaka 2.1.3); “the seven pranas spring from him” (2.1.8); “he sent forth prana, from prana faith, space, air, light, water, earth, sense, mind, food” (Prashna 6.4). The objector concludes that no opinion can be formed, or that the texts of origin are figurative, since the pranas are said to have existed before anything was made.

2.4.1: thus the pranas. The “thus” compares them with space and the elements of the preceding pada: as those are effects of the highest Brahman, so are the pranas, because scripture says so, “from that Self come forth all pranas, all worlds, all gods, all beings” (Brihadaranyaka 2.1.20), and Mundaka 2.1.3 sets their birth beside that of space and air. A text that omits them has no power against a text that names them. 2.4.2: because a secondary sense is impossible. The Mundaka promises that by one thing known all is known (1.1.3) and proves it with “from him is born prana” (2.1.3); the proof holds only if the whole world, pranas included, is Brahman’s effect, and a figurative birth would break the promise, which the chapter closes by repeating, “the Person is all this, sacrifice, penance, Brahman, the highest immortal” (2.1.10), “Brahman alone is all this.” The pranas that existed before creation are not the root cause, which is “without breath, without mind, pure” (2.1.2); the text speaks of a subordinate cause, Hiranyagarbha, and of his effects, since even among things evolved one may be the cause of another. The same syllables, gaunyasambhavat, were the objector’s sutra at 2.3.3, “figurative, because of impossibility,” and are the answer here, “a figure is impossible”; those who read both alike miss the promise that would be abandoned. 2.4.3: because the word of origin is spoken first of them. In Mundaka 2.1.3 the one verb “is born” attaches to prana first and is then carried to space and the rest; a word spoken once in one sentence cannot be literal for some of its subjects and figurative for others; and so with “he sent forth” in Prashna 6.4, carried from prana to faith and the rest, and with “all beings come forth from the Self,” carried back to the pranas named before it.

2.4.4: because speech is preceded by that. The Chandogya chapter that omits the pranas still says “mind consists of earth, breath of water, speech of fire” (6.5.4), and fire, water and earth have Brahman for their cause, so speech, prana and mind, and with them all the organs, have sprung from Brahman. Taken literally the sentence proves it at once; taken loosely it still stands in the chapter that promises to make the unheard heard and ends “in it all this has its self” (6.8.7), so it means that the organs are Brahman’s products. The organ of speech comes from Brahman through fire, and the rest through their elements; the pranas are effects.

No conflict remains about the origin of the pranas; the next question is their number, the chief prana still set aside. The texts seem to disagree: seven, “the seven pranas spring from him” (Mundaka 2.1.8); eight, “eight grahas there are and eight atigrahas” (Brihadaranyaka 3.2.1); nine, “seven are the pranas of the head, two the lower ones” (Taittiriya Samhita 5.3.2.5); ten, “nine pranas are in man, the navel is the tenth”; eleven, “ten are these pranas in man, and the self is the eleventh” (Brihadaranyaka 3.9.4); twelve, “all touches have their center in the skin” (2.4.11); thirteen, “the eye and what can be seen” (Prashna 4.8). 2.4.5 is the objector’s count: seven, because that is understood from the texts and because the seven are specified, “seven indeed are the pranas of the head”; “seven and seven” means seven for each man; where numbers conflict the lower is chosen, the higher counts being modifications of the seven. Or read the sutra from “going”: seven, because scripture speaks of the going of seven, “when he departs, life departs after him, and when life departs all the other pranas depart after it” (Brihadaranyaka 4.4.2), where “all” means the seven under discussion, from sight to touch, as “all the Brahmins were fed” means those who were invited, and understanding is only the mind by another function.

2.4.6: but the hands and the rest as well; this being settled, the count is not so. Scripture names pranas beyond the seven, “the hand is a graha, and it is seized by work as its atigraha, for with the hands one does work” (Brihadaranyaka 3.2.8); when a higher number and a lower conflict, the higher stands, since the lower is contained in it, and so there are eleven, as “ten are these pranas in man, and the self is the eleventh” says, “self” meaning the inner organ that rules the rest. Twelve and thirteen have no twelfth kind of effect behind them: there are five objects, sound, touch, color, taste and smell, and five organs for them; five kinds of action, speaking, taking, going, evacuating and begetting, and five organs for them; and one mind, with everything for its object across past, present and future, called manas, buddhi, ahamkara or chitta by its functions, “all this is mind only.” The seven of the head are four organs counted by their seats, two ears, two eyes, two nostrils and speech; the hands’ work differs in kind from theirs and is no modification; “nine pranas, the navel the tenth” counts the body’s openings, the navel being a seat of the chief prana; some counts serve meditation and some illustration, and the count that answers to the effects is eleven. On the other construction too: the grahas bind the knower of the field in every body and move with it, smriti speaks of the eightfold aggregate that binds and releases, Prashna 4.8 names the hands, the organ of generation, the anus and the feet with their objects, Brihadaranyaka 3.9.4 has eleven depart, and “all pranas” is not narrowed without a reason, since the direct word outweighs the subject matter and the Brahmins were narrowed only because all the Brahmins on earth cannot be fed. The five organs of action, hands, feet, speech, anus and the organ of generation, are pranas like the rest, and all arise from Brahman.

2.4.7: and they are minute. Minute means subtle and limited, and never atomic, since atoms could not produce effects that reach over the whole body. Subtle, because if they were large the people around a dying man would see them come out of him as a snake comes out of its hole; limited, because if they pervaded everything the texts of their passing out, going and coming would be contradicted, and the soul could not have the qualities of the mind for its essence, as 2.3.29 said it does. The Samkhya’s pervasive organs that act as functions in the body only change the name, since whatever brings about perception, a function or anything else, is what an instrument is; so the pranas are subtle and of limited size, and belong to the subtle body that travels.

2.4.8: and the best. What was said of the other pranas, that they are Brahman’s effects, is now said of the chief prana. Why say it, when Mundaka 2.1.3 names prana apart from the organs as born from him and Prashna 6.4 says “he sent forth prana”? To remove a doubt raised by the Nasadiya hymn, which is about Brahman: “there was neither death nor the immortal, no sign of night or day; by its own law the One breathed without wind; there was nothing other than it or beyond it” (Rig Veda 10.129.2). “Breathed” might suggest breath before creation. It does not: the word is qualified by “without wind,” and the cause is “without breath, without mind, pure” (Mundaka 2.1.2), so “breathed” only affirms that the cause existed. The sutra calls it “the best” after scripture, “breath is the oldest and the best” (Chandogya 5.1.1): oldest because it works from the moment of conception, while hearing and sight wait for ears and eyes to form; best by its qualities, and because the organs say to it, “we cannot live without you” (Brihadaranyaka 6.1.13).

What is this chief prana? The objector offers two answers. It is air, since scripture says “breath is air; that air in five forms is prana, apana, vyana, udana, samana.” Or, with the Samkhya, it is the common function of all the organs, “the five airs, prana and the rest, are the common function of the instruments.” 2.4.9: neither air nor function, because it is taught separately. “Breath is the fourth foot of Brahman; that foot shines as Agni with its light and warms” sets it apart from air, which mere air would not need; the texts list speech and the other organs and then prana apart from them, and since a function and its organ are one thing, a mere function would not be listed apart from the organs; Mundaka 2.1.3 names “prana, mind, all the organs, space, air” in one breath. Nor can eleven organs have one joint function, since each has its own and the aggregate has no power of its own. The objector offers the bird cage: eleven birds shut in one cage, each straining, move the cage together. But that is observed, every bird’s effort favoring the cage’s motion, while nothing shows that hearing, seeing and the rest combine into breathing, which differs from all of them in kind; and a mere function could not be glorified as the best with speech and the rest subordinate to it. “Prana is air,” then, means that air passing into the state of the body, divided fivefold and specialized, is called prana; it is neither a second being nor bare air, and both sets of texts stand.

Granted, says the objector, then prana is independent in the body like the soul, since scripture calls it the best and the organs its subordinates, and gives it powers of its own: it wakes while speech and the rest sleep, death does not reach it, it absorbs the organs, it guards them as a mother her sons. 2.4.10: but like the eye and the rest, because it is taught with them, and for other reasons. The organs stand to the soul’s acting and enjoying as subjects stand to a king, and the chief prana stands as the king’s minister, higher than they and subordinate all the same; it is spoken of together with them in the colloquy of the pranas, and things named together share their attributes, as the Brihat and Rathantara samans do; and “for other reasons” points to its having parts and having no intelligence. If prana is an instrument of the soul like the eye, the objector says, it needs a twelfth object, since each organ earns its place by its object and there are eleven kinds of object and no more. 2.4.11: because it is no instrument, there is no fault; for so scripture shows.

Prana is no organ picking out an object, and it is not without an effect of its own: in the colloquy, “he by whose departure the body seems worst is the best of you,” and when speech and the rest went out in turn the body lived on without that one function, and when prana made to leave the others came loose and the body was about to die; “I alone, dividing myself fivefold, support this body and hold it” (Prashna 2.3); “with prana guarding the lower nest” (Brihadaranyaka 4.3.12); “from whatever limb prana departs, that limb withers” (1.3.19); “what we eat and drink with it supports the other breaths”; and “by whose departure shall I depart, by whose staying shall I stay? He sent forth prana” (Prashna 6.3 to 6.4). 2.4.12: it is designated as having five functions, like the mind. Prana is the forward movement, breathing out; apana the backward, breathing in; vyana, abiding where the two meet, the cause of feats of strength; udana the upward movement, the cause of departing; samana the one that carries the juices of food equally through the limbs; the difference of function rests on a difference of effect, and the chief prana has effects of its own. The mind too has five, those stirred by the five senses, or the five the Yoga shastra counts, right knowledge, error, imagination, sleep and memory, or “five” stands for many; on any reading the sutra means that prana’s place under the soul follows from its having functions as the mind has. What is decided: the chief prana is a principle of its own, neither the element air nor the organs’ joint work, the first of the organs though no organ itself, and the soul’s servant.

2.4.13: and it is minute. The chief prana is minute as the other pranas are, subtle and limited and never atomic, since by its five functions it pervades the whole body. Subtle, because no bystander sees it leave the dying; limited, because scripture speaks of its passing out, going and coming. The objector points to a text of its all-pervadingness, “he is equal to a grub, equal to a gnat, equal to an elephant, equal to these three worlds, equal to this universe” (Brihadaranyaka 1.3.22). That belongs to the self of prana in its divine aspect, Hiranyagarbha in his universal and his individual form, and says nothing of prana in the body; and the equalities themselves, “equal to a grub,” declare how limited the prana within each living being is.

Do the organs produce their effects by their own power, or under the guidance of deities? The objector: by their own power, since they have the capacity; and if deities guided them, the deities would be the enjoyers and the embodied soul would enjoy nothing. 2.4.14: but there is guidance by fire and the rest, because scripture says so. “Agni, having become speech, entered the mouth” (Aitareya Aranyaka 2.4.2.4) is said of Agni as a ruling deity, since bare fire has no special tie to speech or to the mouth; “Vayu, having become breath, entered the nostrils,” and the rest of the passage, are read the same way; “speech is the fourth foot of Brahman; that foot shines with Agni as its light” (Chandogya 3.18.3); “he carried speech across first; when speech was freed from death it became Agni” (Brihadaranyaka 1.3.12); everywhere the texts pair speech and the rest with Agni and the rest, the personal with the divine, as the guided with the guide, and smriti says, “Brahmins who know the truth call speech the personal element, what is spoken the natural, and Agni the divine.” Capacity alone proves nothing, since a wagon able to roll still rolls only when bullocks draw it; both are possible, and scripture decides for guidance. 2.4.15: and yet the enjoyer is the one to whom the pranas belong, from scripture. The organs belong to the embodied soul, the lord of the aggregate of instruments: “where sight has entered the void, there is the person of the eye, and the eye is the instrument of seeing; he who knows ‘let me smell this’ is the Self, and the nose is the instrument of smelling” (Chandogya 8.12.4); and the deities being many cannot be the one enjoyer in this body, since “I who saw now hear” shows one.

2.4.16: and because of the permanence of this one. The embodied soul abides in this body as its enjoyer, since good and evil touch it and it feels pleasure and pain; the gods in their power and glory do not enter this wretched body as enjoyers, “only good approaches him; evil does not approach the devas” (Brihadaranyaka 1.5.20). And the organs are permanently joined to the soul alone, since they follow it when it leaves, “when it passes out, prana passes out after it, and when prana passes out all the pranas pass after it” (4.4.2). The deities are joined to the organs; the soul remains the owner and the enjoyer, and the permanence the sutra names is the soul’s permanent connection with its organs, through every body it takes.

The chief prana and the eleven have been treated in turn; are the eleven functions of the chief prana, or beings of their own? The objector: functions, by scripture, which, having spoken of the chief prana and the others together, has the others take its form, “well, let us all take his form; so they all took his form” (Brihadaranyaka 1.5.21); and one word, prana, covers them all, which otherwise would carry several senses or shift between literal and derived; as prana, apana and the rest are five functions of one breath, so the eleven that begin with speech are its functions too. 2.4.17: they are organs (indriya), because they are so named, except the best. The eleven, the chief prana set aside, are called organs in shruti, “from him is born prana, mind and all the organs” (Mundaka 2.1.3), prana and the organs named apart; mind too is named apart there, yet smriti counts eleven organs and so takes it in, while nothing in shruti or smriti calls the chief prana an organ; and a difference of name fits only a difference of being, since one prana could not be an organ in one place and none in another.

2.4.18: because scripture states the difference. The Brihadaranyaka (1.3.2 onward) tells how speech and the other organs were struck by the evil of the asuras, closes their account, and then turns separately to “the breath in the mouth,” which the asuras could not overcome; “he made mind, speech and breath for himself” (1.5.3). 2.4.19: and because of difference of character. The chief prana wakes while the organs sleep; death does not reach it, and reaches them; its staying and leaving keep and destroy the body, which theirs do not; they perceive their objects, and it perceives none. As for “they took his form,” the passage itself names the organs first, “speech resolved, I shall speak,” then has death seize them as weariness, “therefore speech grows weary,” and then sets prana apart as unseized and best, so taking its form means that their working depends on it; and the next words, “therefore they are called pranas after him,” show the name to be transferred. What is decided: speech and its fellows are instruments of their own kind, and the chief breath stands over them as something else.

In the chapter on being, after fire, water and food are created, the text says, “that deity thought, let me enter these three deities with this living self and evolve names and forms; let me make each of these three tripartite” (Chandogya 6.3.2 to 6.3.3). Who evolves the names and forms, the jiva or the highest Lord? The objector: the jiva, because of the qualifying words “with this living self,” as a king says “having entered the enemy’s army by a spy, I count it” while the spy does the counting; and names like Dittha and Davittha are given, and jars and dishes shaped, by souls alone. 2.4.20: but the fashioning of names and forms belongs to him who makes tripartite, because of the teaching. Fire, sun, moon and lightning; kusha and kasha grass and palasha trees; cattle, deer and men; the whole evolution by species and by individual can be the work of the highest Lord alone, who made fire, water and earth; the text says “that deity” and then “let me evolve” in the first person; “with this living self” goes with “having entered,” which stands next to it, and taking it with “let me evolve” would make the deity’s “I” a figure; no soul apart from the Lord evolves mountains, rivers and oceans, and what power a soul has is lent by him; and the jiva is not other than the Lord as the spy is other than the king, since “self” qualifies it and its being a jiva comes from the adjuncts, so what it evolves the Lord evolves, “he who is called space is the evolver of names and forms” (8.14.1).

The tripartition came first: “the red color of burning fire is the color of fire, the white the color of water, the black the color of earth,” and so for sun, moon and lightning, the form of fire evolving and the name “fire” with it, and the passage’s opening and close extend the account to all three, down to “whatever seemed unknown they knew to be a combination of these three.” Then the text turns to a tripartition within man. 2.4.21: flesh and the rest are of earth, as the text says, and so with the two others. “Food eaten becomes threefold; its grossest part becomes feces, its middle part flesh, its finest part mind,” earth being eaten as rice and barley; water drunk becomes urine, blood and breath; fire eaten becomes bone, marrow and speech. The objector: if everything is tripartite, why say “this is fire, this is water, this is earth,” and why make flesh the effect of earth alone?

2.4.22: but because of their distinctive nature there is a designation of them, and the designation stands. Distinctive nature means preponderance: heat prevails in fire, water in whatever is liquid, food in earth, and the tripartition is made so that the distinctions and words of ordinary life are possible, since three strands twisted alike would make one rope and nothing could be told apart or named. So the three elements and their products keep their separate names, and flesh is called earth’s because earth prevails in it. The doubled “tadvadah” marks the end of the book.

The second book ends here. It has answered what smriti and reasoning can say against Brahman as the cause, shown the other systems to stand on nothing, and read the Vedanta texts on creation so that none contradicts another, with the soul unborn and everything from space to the breaths arising from Brahman. Next begins the third book (Sadhana), on the soul’s passage through samsara, its states, the vidyas, and the means to the knowledge that releases.