The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c39.s3.8

v2.c39.s3.8

Prajāpati is not merely the creator of beings, but he reduces them to order from their confusion by entering them with form, Rūpa, and name, Nāman.⁴ The same feat is accorded to the Brahman by another text, and the form is identified with mind and the name with speech.⁵ These two figure in a contest for priority, the mind claiming that speech is but an imitation of it, while speech lays stress on the fact that it gives means of expression and communication. But Prajāpati decides, in favour of the mind, a struggle which is constantly taken up again in the Upaniṣads, and which has a famous parallel in the Roman legend of the contest of the members and the stomach.⁶ Speech, however, remains of value and aid to Prajāpati, and encourages him when he is in doubt or is wearied; he sends her forth to be revealed as the earth, atmosphere, and sky; she is his bride, to bear creation.¹ She forms, therefore, a ground of contest between the gods and the Asuras: the gods win her by inducing the sacrifice to make overtures to her:² again the gods obtain by the offer of her the Soma from the Gandharvas: she brings back the Soma, and the two sides seek to retain her: the Gandharvas recite the Veda, the gods dance and sing and win her foolish heart by these base means. Again she flies from them and enters the wood; but the gods find her and she curses the wood for delivering her up: the trees, however, distributed her in the drum, the lute, and other places.³ At another time she is wroth with the Aṅgirases who prefer Sūrya to her as a sacrificial fee, and leaves the gods, remaining in the space between them and the Asuras and becoming a lioness.⁴ She is, however, won over. The distinction of speech was accomplished by Indra in return for a fourth part of the Soma: one quarter only is distinct, the other parts are the speeches of the beasts, the birds, and insects.⁵ Among men the speech is best in the country of the Kuru-Pañcālas, and the Asuras and barbarians alike talk a bad speech.⁶