The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s8.13

v2.c40.s8.13

In the Upaniṣads the terminology centres mainly in the word Prāṇa, which every now and then, as we have seen, is treated as a synonym of the absolute, but which on the whole is more normally of less consequence. The Prāṇa often represents the senses, but the numbers of Prāṇas, into which it is divided, differ greatly: the origin of the various calculations may certainly be traced in part at least to the Atharvaveda,⁴ where we are told of the head as a drinking bowl with seven seers in the apertures: the sense ascribed to the seven appears to have been the eyes, ears, nostrils, and the organ of taste, for the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad⁵ adds to the seven an eighth in the form of speech. The Upaniṣads normally enumerate a series of five,⁶ breath, eye, ear, mind, and speech, but these are sometimes reduced to four or less; thus the Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa repeatedly dwells on the series, speech, mind, sight, hearing, and the breath or breaths; the cosmic parallels are fire, moon, sun, the quarters (i. e. space), and wind. A different view is that of a passage of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad,⁷ where the organs of smell, speech, tongue, eye, ear, mind, hands, and skin are enumerated as the eight Grahas, and the corresponding objects, odour, name, taste, form, sound, desire, action, and touch are set over against them as the Atigrahas, possibly an indication, since Graha may mean seizer, that the soul was fettered by the organs and their activities, an idea carried out in the phrase 'bands of the heart', which is first found in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad.¹ The later term Indriya is first found in the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad,² when on death the father hands over to his son his speech; smell; eye; ear; tastes; actions; pleasure and pain; bliss, delight, and procreation; movements; mind; and intellect (*prajñā*), where the usual later enumeration of ten with mind is followed, with one exception. In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad³ we find the skin as the uniting-place of touch; the tongue of tastes; the nose of odours; the eye of forms; the ear of sounds; the mind of conceptions (*saṁkalpa*); the heart of knowledge; the hands of actions; the generative organ of pleasure; the anus of procreation; the feet of movements; and speech of the Vedas; but the name, Indriya, is not used. The normal later total of ten with mind, including the heart, as Indriyas is found in the Praçna,⁴ in a passage which also enumerates the five subtle elements, the five gross elements, intellect, individuation, thought, brilliance, and breath.