Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣadबृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्

Madhu Kanda. Adhyaya 1, Brahmana 3. The contest of the vital breath

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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.

॥ 1.3.7 ॥

The breath in the mouth, unbroken

अथ हेममासन्यं प्राणमूचुस्त्वं न उद्गायेति । तथेति तेभ्य एष प्राण उदगायत् । तेऽविदुरनेन वै न उद्गात्रात्येष्यन्तीति । तमभिद्रुत्य पाप्मनाविव्यत्सन् । स यथाश्मानमृत्वा लोष्टो विध्वंसेतैवं हैव विध्वंसमाना विष्वञ्चो विनेशुः । ततो देवा अभवन्पराासुराः । भवत्यात्मना परास्य द्विषन्भ्रातृव्यो भवति य एवं वेद ॥

In transliteration

atha hemamāsanyaṃ prāṇamūcustvaṃ na udgāyeti | tatheti tebhya eṣa prāṇa udagāyat | te'viduranena vai na udgātrātyeṣyantīti | tamabhidrutya pāpmanāvivyatsan | sa yathāśmānamṛtvā loṣṭo vidhvaṃsetaivaṃ haiva vidhvaṃsamānā viṣvañco vineśuḥ | tato devā abhavanparāāsurāḥ | bhavatyātmanā parāsya dviṣanbhrātṛvyo bhavati ya evaṃ veda ||

In English

Then they said to this breath in the mouth: Chant the Udgitha for us. So be it, said the breath, and chanted for them. The demons knew: through this chanter they mean to surpass us. They rushed at it, wishing to strike it with evil; but as a clod of earth, hitting a rock, is shattered, so were they shattered, flung in every direction, and they perished. Then the gods prevailed and the demons were undone. He who knows this prevails in his own Self, and the hateful kinsman who is his rival is undone.

In plain words

Last the gods asked the vital breath in the mouth, the chief breath (mukhya prana), to chant. It agreed and chanted. The demons rushed to pierce it with evil too, but they could not: as a lump of earth thrown against a solid rock is smashed to pieces, the demons were smashed and scattered in all directions and destroyed. So the gods triumphed and the demons fell. One who knows this becomes established in his true Self, and the rival who hates him is destroyed.

In the commentaries

Sri SankaraAdvaita

Sankara: the chief vital breath alone cannot be touched by the evil of impropriety, because it has no private object to crave and is the impartial life of the whole body; meditating on prana as the Udgitha-chanter, one breaks the craving-self (the demons) and stands established in the Self.

Sri Sankara, Brhadaranyaka-bhasya 1.3.7 (via Madhavananda)

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