The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s8.135

v2.c40.s8.135

Of the gross body we learn that the seat of the breaths, of the mind, and even of the organs of sense is really in the heart, where in sleep the organs remain and where in death they gather: nay, the heart is even identified with the Brahman, and is essentially its home: the name *hṛdayam* is derived from *hṛdy ayam*, ‘he here in the heart’.⁵ In the golden lotus of the heart is the ether in which heaven and earth, sun, moon, and stars are enclosed, into which the soul enters in sleep, and in which the immortal golden Puruṣa resides.¹ It is the cavity in which the Brahman is concealed. Round the heart are the veins 72,000 in number,² and these, by another turn of thought, are conceived as of five colours, uniting with the rays of the sun similarly coloured and thus connecting the sun and the heart. In deep sleep the soul glides into the veins and through them it becomes one with the heart. At death the soul is conceived as passing out by the veins, and the rays of the sun, which the wise find open to them, while the entrance is closed to the ignorant.³ By yet another turn of thought⁴ the conception is reached that only one vein leads to the sun out of 101, the vein in question leading to the head, presumably in connexion with the fact that there is the suture, the Brahmarandhra,⁵ through which in the process of creation the Brahman is supposed to enter the body as spirit. Later accounts such as that of the Praçna⁶ merge the two versions of 72,000 and 101 veins into one, the 101 veins having each 100 branches, each of which has 72,000 sub-branches, in all 727,210,201.