The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c8.s6.t2.3

c8.s6.t2.3

The question as to the nature and origin of the Prāṇas is twice treated, 2, 3, 15 and 2, 4, 1—4 without our arriving at settled ideas in the matter; in the first passage (as we saw above chap. XVII, 3 p. 236) Çaṅkara is undecided whether the Prāṇas are to be regarded as of the same nature as, or as different from the elements; in the former case, he thinks, they must have originated (in the creation at the beginning of each Kalpa) at the same time as the elements, in the latter before and after them; at any rate it is certain, he says, that they, like the elements, have arisen from Brahman. — The verbose treatment which he deals out to our question in the others passage, 2, 4, 1—4, does not bring us much further, for the essential content of his explanation is limited to the following: the question is whether the Prāṇas had an origin or not (p. 701, 6), for passages can be cited in support of both assumptions (p. 701, 7. 702, 1); one may not however therefore take the origin of the Prāṇas in a figurative (*gauṇa*) sense (p. 702, 7); on the contrary they are sprung from Brahman just as much as the rest of the world (p. 703, 11), for the Scripture teaches this expressly (p. 704, 7). If on the other hand the Scripture (Çatapathabr. 6, 1, 1, 1) makes them exist before the origin [of the world], they are for all that not absolutely primordial in their nature (*mūla-prakṛiti*) but only relatively so (*avāntara-prakṛiti*) viz. with respect to what has originated in its turn from them (p. 706, 6). Whether their origin from the elements as taught Chānd. 6, 6, 5 (above p. 263) is to be taken literally or figuratively (p. 708, 5), it follows in any case from it that they like all else have arisen from Brahman (p. 708, 9).