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Through the breath called
PRANA a living creature is enabled to move. Through that called
VYANA , they put forth strength of action. That called APANA moves
downwards. That called SAMANA resides within the heart. Through
that called UDANA one eructates and is enabled to speak in consequence
of its piercing through (the lungs, the throat, and the mouth).
These
are the five kinds of wind that cause an embodied creature to live
and move. The properties of scent an embodied creature knows through
the earth element in him. From the water element he receives taste.
From the fire element represented by the eyes, he perceives forms,
and from the wind element he obtains the perception of touch. Scent,
touch, taste,vision, and sound are regarded as the general properties
of every mobile and immobile object. I shall first speak of the
several kinds of scent. They are agreeable, disagreeable, sweet,
pungent, far-going, varied, dry, indifferent. All these nine kinds
of scent are founded upon the earth element. Light is seen by the
eyes and touch through the wind element. Sound, touch, vision and
taste are the properties of water. I shall speak in detail now of
the perception of taste.
High-souled
Rishis have spoken of diverse kinds of taste. They are sweet, saltish,
bitter, astringent, sour and pungent. These are the six kinds of
taste appertaining to the water element. Light contributes to the
vision of form. Form is of diverse kinds. Short, tall, thick, four-cornered,
round, white, black, red, blue, yellow, reddish, hard, bright, smooth,
oily, soft, and terrible. These are the sixteen kinds of form which
constitute the property of light or vision. The property of the
wind element is touch. Touch is of various kinds: warm, cold, agreeable,
disagreeable, indifferent, burning, mild, soft, light and heavy.
Both sound and touch are the two properties of the wind element.
These are the eleven properties that appertain to the wind.
Space
has only one property. It is called sound. I shall now tell thee
the different kinds of sound. They are the seven original notes
called Shadja, Rishabha, Gandhara, Madhyama, Panchama, Dhaivata
and Nishada.
These
are the seven kinds of property that appertains to space. Sound
inheres like the Supreme Being in all space though attached especially
to drums and other instruments. Whatever sound is heard from drums
small and large, and conchs, and clouds, and cars, and animate and
inanimate creatures, are all included in these seven kinds of sound
already enumerated. Thus sound, which is the property of space,
is of various kinds. The learned have said sound to be born of space.
When raised by the different kinds of touch, which is the property
of the wind, it may be heard. It cannot however, be heard, when
the different kinds of touch are inceptive. The elements, mingling
with their counterparts in the body , increase and grow. Water,
fire, wind are always awake in the bodies of living creatures. They
are the roots of the body. Pervading the five life-breaths they
reside in the body.
Heat
resides within the head (brain) and protects the body from perishing.
The breath called PRANA, residing within the head and the heat that
is there, cause all kinds of exertion. That PRANA is the living
creature, the universal soul, the eternal Being, and the Mind, Intellect
and Consciousness of all living creatures, as also all the objects
of the senses. Thus the living creature is, in every respect, caused
by Prana to move about and exert.
Then
in consequence of the other breath called SAMANA, everyone of the
senses is made to act as it does. The breath called APANA, having
recourse to the heat that is in the urethra and the abdominal intestines,
moves, engaged in carrying out urine and faeces. That single breath
which operates in these three, is called UDANA by those that are
conversant with science. That breath which operates, residing in
all the joints of men's bodies, is called VYANA. There is heat in
the bodies of living creatures which is circulated all over the
system by the breath called SAMANA.
Residing
thus in the body, that breath operates upon the different kinds
of watery and other elementary substances and all bad humours. That
heat residing between Apana and Prana, in the region of the naval,
operates with the aid of those two breaths, in digesting all food
that is taken by a living creature. There is a duct beginning from
the mouth down to the anal canal. Its extremity is called the anus.
From this main duct numerous subsidiary ones branch out in the bodies
of all living creatures.In consequence of the rush of the several
breaths named above (through these ducts), those breaths mingle
together. The heat that dwells in Prana is called USHMAN.
It
is this heat that causes digestion in all creatures possessed of
bodies. The breath called Prana, the bearer of a current of heat,
descends from the head downwards to the extremity of the anal canal
and thence is sent upwards once more. Coming back to its seat in
the head, it once more sends down the heat it bears. Below the navel
is the region of digested matter. Above it is that for the food
which is taken. In the navel are all the forces of life that sustain
the body. Urged by the ten kinds of breaths having Prana for their
first, the ducts branching out from the heart, convey the liquid
juices that food yields, upwards, and in transverse directions.
The main duct leading from the mouth to the anus is the path by
which yogis, vanquishers of fatigue, of perfect equanimity in joy
and sorrow, and possessed of great patience, succeed in attaining
to Brahma by holding the soul within the brain.
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