Hindu Medicine c8.52

c8.52

Life-breath is to be regarded as the unity of antagonistic principles. In cosmogony it manifests itself as “Virāj” (12), that is, as the “widely ruling power” which is the first female principle to evolve from the supreme being as his daughter, mate or feminine aspect. She, the primal cosmic “Cow,” is maternal nature, bringing forth the universe and representing its substance. At the same time, prāṇa is primeval energy, enlivening all beings, and urging them by her commands on to their respective activities. Moreover, in maintaining the universal life-process, life-breath manifests itself as Moon and Sun, that is, as the moistening, nourishing principle which is “food” and “feeder” for gods and creatures, and as the fierce, devouring power of fire in its celestial form which matures and withers the organisms. Such a union of opposites, in the case of the microcosmic life-breath, is observed in its twofold movement, breathing forth and breathing down; and in the two principal kinds of sustaining foodstuff, rice and barley (13, 14,) ; it is prāṇa that enables man to live while in the womb, and to be reborn as son and *alter ego* once he is expelled from the womb by the pneumatic pressure of the mother’s life-breath: