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 organs ask who is greatest
These organs, disputing among themselves over who was the greater, went to Brahman and said to him, Which of us is the most prosperous? He said to them, That one of you is the most prosperous after whose departure the body is thought to be more wretched.
The organs quarreled, each claiming to be the greatest, and went to Brahman (the Creator). They asked, Which of us is the most prosperous (vasistha)? He answered, The one whose leaving makes people regard this body as the more wretched (papiyas), that one is the most prosperous among you.
In the commentaries
Brahman lays down the test of supremacy: the greatest organ is the one whose departure renders the body most wretched; the Creator, though He knew the answer, withheld it to avoid offending the rest. (Sankara reads the mula papiyo as the comparative papiyas, more wretched than before.)