Khila Kanda. Adhyaya 5, Brahmana 2. The threefold word of the thunder: da, da, da
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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.
The thunder says da da da
Then the asuras said to him, "Let your honour instruct us." To them he uttered this very same syllable, "da." He asked, "Have you understood?" They said, "We have understood. You said to us, be compassionate." He said, "Yes, you have understood." This very thing the heavenly voice, the thunder, repeats: "da da da," that is, restrain yourselves, give, be compassionate. Therefore one should learn these three: self-restraint, charity, and compassion.
Last the demons (asuras) asked for teaching, and Prajapati again spoke the same single sound, "da." The demons, whose besetting fault is cruelty and harming others, heard in it the word dayadhvam, "be compassionate, be kind to all," and Prajapati confirmed they had understood rightly. That same threefold instruction is echoed to this day by the divine voice of thunder, whose rumble sounds "da da da," meaning damyata, datta, dayadhvam: restrain yourselves, give, be compassionate. Therefore a person should learn and practice all three together: self-restraint (dama), charity (dana), and compassion (daya).
In the commentaries
Sankara reads the asuras, who are cruel and given to injuring others, as rightly hearing da as dayadhvam, be compassionate; and on the closing line he answers the objection that each discipline belongs only to one class by ruling that thunder voicing all three to all shows the instruction is universal, so every person, being liable to all three faults, should practice all three: self-restraint, charity, and compassion.