The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s5.12

v2.c40.s5.12

Other efforts are made to realize the Ātman by a process of examination of the merits of the different claimants. Thus we have the account of the rivalry of the senses foreshadowed in the Brāhmaṇas carried out in detail. The breath is the victor over speech, the eye, the ear, and mind, because when all the others go from the body still it is left animated,² and from another point of view breath alone is able in the conflict of the gods, the senses, and the demons to overthrow the demons.³ Another version⁴ adds to the other powers the cosmical equivalents, and ranges speech, eye, ear and breath against one another, and fire, sun, moon, and wind against one another; in each case the result is the victory of breath and wind. In the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad,⁵ following the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa,⁶ the cosmic divinities fire, sun, moon, lightning, and the psychic divinities, speech, eye, ear, mind, enter into the wind and the breath respectively. The same idea occurs in an earlier version of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa:⁷ in sleep speech enters the breath, and so with eye, mind, ear, and correspondingly with fire, sun, moon, and the quarters in their relation to the wind. Hence we frequently find that the breath is set up as an idea of the Brahman,⁸ but merely to be rejected as inadequate.