The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c39.s2.116

v2.c39.s2.116

It was of course quite inevitable that the eternal comparison of macrocosm and microcosm should here play its part, and so, in point of fact, we find the relationship of the breath as the principle of life in man, and the cosmic Prāṇa, which is the wind, asserted in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa.⁴ Nor are there lacking evidences of efforts to make Prāṇa the one reality, as Ātman was so made: Prāṇa is identified with Prajāpati, and also the Ātman, but these views are late and isolated.⁵ The theosophy of the Atharvaveda⁶ with its cosmopolitanism, however, accepts the Prāṇa readily as an expression of the universal, just as it accepts the Brahman, and as it sees in the Ātman the same essence as the meaning of the universe.