The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c6.s5.t2.3

c6.s5.t2.3

Thus we are to understand, when, in the text, on the basis of the common bearing and controlling of beings, sense-organs, and vital spirits, it is said: "What the earth is, the body is, "what the body is, the heart is." For this reason also the *Gâyatrî* is called sixfold, because it symbolically represents the three things named and their respective contents (cf. p. 149, 8 *bhûta-pṛthivî-çarîra-hṛdaya-vâk-prâṇa* and on Chândogya-Up. p. 184, 10: *vâg-bhûta-pṛthivî-çarîra-hṛdaya-prâṇa*). But further it has *four feet*, that is, the three actual and a fourth, imagined, which is also mentioned Bṛh. 5, 14.⁷⁸ For the rest, the Bṛhadâraṇyakam *loc. cit.* follows its own course; how, in our passage, the four feet are to be understood, must be deduced from the verse (Rigv. X, 90, 3) quoted on this occasion: