Adoration to the Highest Self. Hari, Om!
1. Verily, in the beginning! all this was Self, one only; there was nothing else blinking * whatsoever.
2. He thought: ‘Shall I send forth worlds?’ (1) He sent forth these worlds,
3. Ambhas (water), Marifi (light), Mara (mortal), and Ap (water).
4. That Ambhas (water) is above the heaven, and
it is heaven, the support. The Marifis (the lights) are
the sky. The Mara (mortal) is the earth, and the
waters under the earth are the Ap world *. (2)
1 Before the creation. Comm.
* Blinking, mishat, i.e. living; cf. Rv. X, 190, 2, visvasya mishato vasi, the lord of all living. Sdyaza seems to take mishat as a 3rd pers. sing.
$’ The names of the four worlds are peculiar. Ambhas means water, and is the name given to the highest world, the waters above the heaven, and heaven itself. Marif#is are rays, here used as a name of the sky, antariksha. Mara means dying, and the earth is called so, because all creatures living there must die. Ap is water, here explained as the waters under the earth, The usual division of the world is threefold, earth, sky, and heaven. Here it is fourfold, the fourth division being the water round the earth, or, as the commentator says, under the earth. Ambhas was probably intended for the highest heaven (dyaus), and was then explained both as what is above the heaven and as heaven itself, the support. If we translate, like Sankara and Colebrooke, ‘the water is the region above the heaven which heaven upholds,’ we should lose heaven altogether, yet heaven, as the third with sky and earth, is essential in the Indian view of the world.
238 AITAREYA-ARANYAKA.
5. He thought: ‘There are these worlds; shall I send forth guardians of the worlds ?’
He then formed the Purusha (the person)?, taking him forth from the water *. (3)
6. He brooded on him, and when that person had
thus been brooded on, a mouth burst forth‘ like an
egg. From the mouth proceeded speech, from
speech Agni (fire) ®.
Nostrils burst forth. From the nostrils pro- ceeded scent (prdza)*, from scent Vayu (air).
Eyes burst forth. From the eyes proceeded sight, from sight Aditya (sun).
Ears burst forth. From the ears proceeded hear- ing, from hearing the Dis (quarters of the world).
Skin burst forth. From the skin proceeded hairs (sense of touch), from the hairs shrubs and trees.
The heart burst forth. From the heart proceeded mind, from mind Kandramas (moon).
The navel burst forth. From the navel proceeded the Ap4na (the down-breathing)’, from Apana death.
+ Purusha; an embodied being, Colebrooke ; a being of human shape, Réer; purush4k4ram vira/pindam, Sayama.
* According to the commentator, from the five elements, begin- ning with water. ‘That person is meant for the Virag.
5 Tap, as the commentator observes, does not mean here and in similar passages to perform austerities (tapas), such as the Krzkkfra, the Kandrayana, &c., but to conceive and to will and to create by mere will. I have translated it by brooding, though this expresses a part only of the meaning expressed by tap.
* Literally, was opened.
° Three things are always distinguished here—the place of each sense, the instrument of the sense, and the presiding deity of the sense.
° Prava, i.e. ghramendriya, must be distinguished from the praza, the up-breathing, one of the five prazas, and likewise from
the praza as the principle of life. * The Apana, down-breathing, is generally one of the five vital airs
11 Aranyaka, 4 Adhyaya, 2 Khanda, 4. 239
The generative organ burst forth. From the organ proceeded seed, from seed water. (4)
SECOND KHAwWDA.
1. Those deities (devata), Agni and the rest, after they had been sent forth, fell into this great ocean}.
Then he (the Self) besieged him, (the person) with hunger and thirst.
2. The deities then (tormented by hunger and
thirst) spoke to him (the Self: ‘Allow us a place
in which we may rest and eat food2.’ (1)
He led a cow towards them (the deities). They
said: ‘This is not enough.’ He led a horse towards
them. They said: ‘ This is not enough.’ (2)
He led man* towards them. Then they said: ‘Well done‘, indeed.” Therefore man is well done.
3. He said to them: ‘Enter, each according to his place.’ (3)
4. Then Agni (fire), having become speech, en-
tered the mouth. V4Ayu (air), having become scent,
entered the nostrils. Aditya (sun), having become
sight, entered the eyes. The Dis (regions), having
become hearing, entered the ears. The shrubs and
trees, having become hairs, entered the skin. an-
dramas (the moon), having become mind, entered
which are supposed to keep the body alive. In our place, however, apana is deglutition and digestion, as we shall see in II, 4, 3, 10.
* They fell back into that universal being from whence they had sprung, the first created person, the Viraég. Or they fell into the world, the last cause of which is ignorance.
2 To eat food is explained to mean to perceive the objects which correspond to the senses, presided over by the various deities.
5 Here purusha is different from the first purusha, the universal person. It can only be intended for intelligent man.
4 Sukrzta, well done, virtue; or, if taken for svakrzta, self-made.
240 AITAREYA-ARANYAKA.
the heart. Death, having become down-breathing,
entered the navel. The waters, having become
seed, entered the generative organ. (4)
5. Then Hunger and Thirst spoke to him (the
Self): ‘Allow us two (a place).’ He said to them:
‘I assign you to those very deities there, I make
you co-partners with them.’ Therefore to whatever
deity an oblation is offered, hunger and thirst are
co-partners in it. (5)
1. He thought: ‘ There are these worlds and the
guardians of the worlds. Let me send forth food
for them.’ (1)
He brooded over the water’. From the water
thus brooded on, matter* (mirti) was born. And
that matter which was born, that verily was
food °, (2)
2. When this food (the object matter) had thus
been sent forth, it wished to flee‘, crying and turn-
ing away. He (the subject) tried to grasp it by
speech. He could not grasp it by speech. If he
had grasped it by speech, man would be satisfied by
naming food. (3)
He tried to grasp it by scent (breath). He could
not grasp it by scent. If he had grasped it by scent,
man would be satisfied by smelling food. (4)
He tried to grasp it by the eye. He could not
1 The water, as mentioned before, or the five elements.
* Marti, for mfiriti, form, Colebrooke ; a being of organised form, Roer; vrihiyavadirfipé mfshakadiripa 4a mfirtif, i.e. vegetable food for men, animal food for cats, &c.
* Offered food, i.e. objects for the Devatés and the senses in the body.
* Atyagighamsat, ativayena hantum gantum aitkhat. Sayama.
Ii Aranyaka, 4 Adhyaya, 3 Khanda, 6. 241
grasp it by the eye. If he had grasped it by the eye, man would he satisfied by seeing food. (5)
He tried to grasp it by the ear. He could not
grasp it by the ear. If he had grasped it by the ear,
man would be satisfied by hearing food. (6)
He tried to grasp it by the skin. He could not
grasp it by the skin. If he had grasped it by the
skin, man would be satisfied by touching food. (7)
He tried to grasp it by the mind. He could not
grasp it by the mind. If he had grasped it by the
mind, man would be satisfied by thinking food. (8)
He tried to grasp it by the generative organ.
He could not grasp it by the organ. If he had
grasped it by the organ, man would be satisfied by
sending forth food. (9)
He tried to grasp it by the down-breathing (the
breath which helps to swallow food through the
mouth and to carry it off through the rectum, the
payvindriya). He got it.
3. Thus it is Vayu (the getter') who lays hold of
food, and the Vayu is verily Annayu (he who gives
life or who lives by food). (10)
4. Hethought: ‘How can all this be without me?’
5. And then he thought: ‘By what way shall I get there? ?’ :
6. And then he thought: ‘If speech names, if
scent smells, if the eye sees, if the ear hears, if the
skin feels, if the mind thinks, if the off-breathing
digests, if the organ sends forth, then what
am ir’ (rx)
1 An attempt to derive vayu from vi, to get.
2 Or, by which of the two ways shall I get in, the one way being from the top of the foot (cf. Ait. Ar. II, 1, 4, 1), the other from the skull? Comm.
242 AITAREYA-ARANYAKA.
7. Then opening the suture of the skull, he got in by that door.
8. That door is called the Vidvzti (tearing asun- der), the NAndana (the place of bliss).
9. There are three dwelling-places for him, three
dreams; this dwelling-place (the eye), this dwell-
ing-place (the throat), this dwelling-place (the
heart) 1. (12)
10. When born (when the Highest Self had en-
tered the body) he looked through all things, in
order to see whether anything wished to proclaim
here another (Self). He saw this person only (him-
self) as the widely spread Brahman. ‘I saw it, thus
he said”; (13)
Therefore he was Idam-dra (seeing this).
11. Being Idamdra by name, they call him Indra
mysteriously. For the Devas love mystery, yea,
they love mystery. (14)
Passages like this must always have required an oral interpreta- tion, but it is by no means certain that the explanation given in the commentaries represents really the old traditional interpretation. Sayama explains the three dwelling-places as the right eye, in a state of waking ; as the throat, in a state of dreaming; as the heart, in a state of profound sleep. Sankara explains them as the right eye, the inner mind, and the ether in the heart. Sdyaza allows another interpretation of the three dwelling-places being the body of the father, the body of the mother, and one’s own body. The three dreams or sleeps he explains by waking, dreaming, and profound. sleep, and he remarks that waking too js called a dream as com- pared with thé true awakening, which is the knowledge of Brahman, In the last sentence the speaker, when repeating three times ‘this dwelling-place,’ is supposed to point to his right eye, the throat, and the heart. This interpretation is supported by a passage in the Brahma-upanishad, Netre gagaritam vidyat kanthe svapnam samadiset, sushuptam hrzdayasya tu.
* In this passage, which is very obscure, Sankara fails us, either because, as Anandagfiana says, he thought the text was too easy to require any explanation, or because the writers of the MSS, left out
11 Aranyaka, 5 Adhyaya, I Khanda, 4. 243
FIFTH ADHYAYA. First KuHawpa.
1. Let the women who are with child move away?!
2. Verily, from the beginning he (the self) is in man as a germ, which is called seed.
3. This (seed), which is strength gathered from
all the limbs of the body, he (the man) bears as self
in his self (body). When he commits the seed to
the woman, then he (the father) causes it to be
born. That is his first birth. (1)
4. That seed becomes the self of the woman, as