File: AtlanStarMaitriUpn2.6 01.doc
MAITRI UPANISHAD, 2ND PRAPATHAKA (2.6 a-c…)
6. "Verily, in the beginning Prajapati stood alone. He had no enjoyment, being alone. He then, by meditating upon himself (atmanam) created numerous offspring.
[a] He saw them inanimate and lifeless, like a stone, standing like a stone, standing like a post. He had no enjoyment. He then thought to himself: 'Let me enter within, in order to animate them.'
[b] He made himself like wind and sought to enter within. As one, he as unable. So he divided himself fivefold -he who is spoken of as the Prana breath, the Apana breath, the Samana breath, the Udana breath, the Vyana breath.
Now, that breath which passes up -that, assuredly, is -the Prana breath. Now, that which passes down -that, assuredly, is the Apana breath. Now, that, verily, by which these two are supported -that, assuredly, is the Vyana breath. Now, that which conducts into the Apana breath [what is] the coarsest element of food and distributes (sam-a-nayati) in each limb [what is] the most subtile -that, assuredly, is named the Samana breath. It is a higher form of the Vyana breath, and between them is the production of the Udana breath. Now, that which 'belches forth and swallows down what has been drunk and eaten' -that, assuredly, is the Udana breath.
[c] Now, the Upamsu vessel is over against the Antaryama vessel, and the Antaryama, vessel over against the Upamsu vessel. Between these two, God (deva) generated heat. The heat is a person,1 and a person is the universal fire (Agni Vaisvanara). It has elsewhere 2 been said: 'This is the universal fire, namely that which is here within a person, by means of which the food that is eaten is cooked. It is the noise thereof that one hears on covering the ears thus.3 When he [i.e. a person] is about to depart, one hears not this sound.'
'He, verily, having divided himself fivefold, is hidden away in secret -He who consists of mind, whose body is life (prana), whose form is light, whose conception is truth, whose soul is space.4
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1. According to the commentator, the Prana and Apana breaths are here compared to the two vessels. Upamsu and Antaryama, which stand on either side of the central altar at the Soma sacrifice; and a person is compared to the heat produced between the two
.2 Brih. 5. 9. A similar idea is found in Chand.
3. 13. 8.3. Deictically.
4. Repeated from Chand. 3. 14. 2.