Madhu Kanda. Adhyaya 1, Brahmana 3. The contest of the vital breath
New to these pages?
Each mantra is given four ways: the Sanskrit in its Devanagari script, the same sounds in Roman letters, an English translation set in our own voice, and then the line once more in plain words, for a first and unhurried reading.
Not every passage is opened to the same depth. A few central mantras carry the full cross-school commentary, where the schools are set side by side. The rest are kept here whole and faithful, set in their place but not expounded, so the book stays entire and nothing is dropped for being thought minor.
Where the schools read a line differently, the difference is kept open. None is crowned and none is corrected. Each is met on its own terms, and where they contradict, the contradiction is left standing for you to sit with.
Breath freed becomes air
Then it carried the breath in the nose across. When that breath was freed from death, it became air. This air, having gone past death, blows beyond it.
Then the vital breath carried the breath of the nose, the organ of smell, across death. When it was released from death, it became the wind (vayu). This wind, having crossed beyond death, now blows on the far side of it.