Khila Kanda. Adhyaya 6, Brahmana 1. The contest of the organs: the vital breath is greatest
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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 breath stirs, the pegs tear loose
Then, as the vital breath was about to depart, it tore up the other organs together, as a great Sindhu horse might tear up the pegs to which it is tethered. They said to it, Sir, do not depart. Truly we shall not be able to live without you. Then offer me tribute, it said. So be it, they said.
Then the breath made ready to rise, and as it stirred it wrenched the other organs loose all at once, the way a great Sindhu horse rips up the tethering pegs when it bolts. The organs cried, Do not go, lord; we cannot live without you. The breath said, Then pay me tribute. So be it, they answered.
In the commentaries
Where each organ's departure was survivable, the mere stirring of the vital breath uproots all the rest at once, as a powerful horse tears out its tethering pegs; so the breath is proven supreme, and the organs sue for its stay and offer tribute.