A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5.12.3

c5.12.3

This passage in the Chhāndogyopanishad is probably the earliest and the most classical as illustrating the controversy between the organs of sense and Prāṇa, and the resulting supremacy of Prāṇa over the organs. With a little variation, the same story occurs in the Kaushītaki Upanishad (II. 14), which, being so much the later, we are not much concerned as merely repeating for us the story of the Chhāndogyopanishad. But there are one or two points in the story of the controversy of the Senses and Prāṇa in the Praśnopanishad which we cannot leave unnoticed. There, in the first place, the elements namely space, wind, fire, water, and earth join hands with the organs of sense, namely, speech, mind, eye and ear in the controversy with Prāṇa. In the second place, we must note the two similies employed in the Praśnopanishad. The body is there called Bāṇa, which, as Max Müller suggests, may well be taken to mean a harp, and the elements as well as the organs of sense contend that they have the power to uphold this harp and to modulate it. Incidentally, it is interesting to notice the description of the body in the Praśnopanishad as a harp, which is almost Pythagorean or Platonic. Then again when Prāṇa wants to go out, it is compared to the queen-bee, which, when it goes out, is accompanied by all the bees that move after it, and which, when it is back, is likewise followed by the bees that re-forthwith.