The Breath That Never Sleeps

Prajapati, the father of creatures, made the powers of the body. He made speech, and sight, and hearing, and the others after them. And as soon as they were made, they began to compete.

Each one took a vow.

"I shall speak," said Speech. "That is what I shall do, and I shall go on doing it."

"I shall see," said the Eye.

"I shall hear," said the Ear.

So it went with all of them, each according to its own work. Each meant to keep at that work without stopping.

Then Death came among them. He did not come as a killer. He came as weariness.

He took hold of Speech, and Speech grew tired and fell silent. He took hold of the Eye, and the Eye grew heavy and closed. He took hold of the Ear, and the Ear heard nothing more. One after another he seized them and held them back from the work they had sworn to do. This is why, the Upanishad says, speech still tires, and the eye tires, and the ear tires.

But there was one he could not seize. The breath in the middle of the body went on, in and out, exactly as before. Weariness closed its hand on it and held nothing.

The others noticed. When they had recovered a little, they gathered round to look at this one who had not been caught.

"He is the best of us," they said. "Whether he moves or keeps still, he does not tire, and he does not perish."

"Then let us all take his form," they said.

And they did. That is why all the powers of the body are called by his name. We do not call them the speeches or the eyes. We call them the breaths, the pranas.

So much for the body. The Upanishad then turns to the gods and tells the same story a second time.

"I shall burn," said Agni, the Fire.

"I shall give heat," said the Sun.

"I shall shine," said the Moon.

Each of the gods took a vow according to his nature, as the powers of the body had done. And the same thing happened to them. Fire dies down. The sun sets. The moon wanes and is gone.

But Vayu, the Wind, was among the gods what the middle breath was among the powers of the body. The others fade and he does not. Vayu, the Upanishad says, is the god who never sets.

It quotes an old verse here. The sun rises out of him, the verse says, and goes to rest in him. The gods made him their law, and he is the same today and tomorrow.

From this the Upanishad draws a single rule for a person to keep. Let him take one vow only. Let him breathe in and breathe out, with the wish that death, which is weariness, may not reach him. And if he takes the vow, he should try to carry it through. By keeping it he comes to share a world with that god who does not set.

The singers of the Sama Veda told it as a quarrel, with Prajapati as the judge.

The powers of the body fell out among themselves.

"I am the best," said Speech.

"I am the best," said the Eye, and the Ear and the Mind said the same.

They went to their father Prajapati.

"Sir, which of us is the best?"

"The one whose leaving makes the body look worst of all," said Prajapati. "That one is the best of you."

So Speech went away for a year. When it came back it asked, "How did you manage to live without me?"

"Like people who cannot speak," they said. "But we breathed with the breath, saw with the eye, heard with the ear and thought with the mind. So we lived." And Speech went back in.

The Eye went away for a year. "How did you live without me?"

"Like the blind. But we breathed and spoke and heard and thought. So we lived."

The Ear went away, and they lived like the deaf. The Mind went away, and they lived like small children whose minds have not yet formed. Each came back after its year and found the body still alive, and each went back in.

Then it was the turn of the Breath.

It did not even leave. It only made ready to go. And as it gathered itself, it began to drag all the others out with it, the way a strong horse about to bolt pulls up the pegs it is tied to.

They came running to it.

"Sir, stay! Be our lord. You are the best of us. Do not go out!"

Then each of them gave up its own boast. Speech had called itself the richest. "If I am the richest," it said to the Breath, "it is you who are the richest." The Eye, the Ear and the Mind each said the same of the thing they had been proud of.

And so, the Upanishad ends, people do not call them the speeches or the eyes or the ears or the minds. They call them the breaths, because the breath is all of them.

In another place the Chandogya puts the teaching into the mouth of the sage Raikva, and then follows it with a short scene at a meal.

Wind, Raikva says, is the one that gathers everything in. When a fire goes out, it goes into the wind. When the sun sets, it goes into the wind, and so does the moon when it sets. When water dries up, it goes into the wind. In the body the breath does the same. When a person sleeps, speech goes into the breath, and so do sight and hearing and mind. These are the two gatherers, wind among the gods and breath among the powers of the body.

Then comes the scene.

Two wealthy men, Shaunaka Kapeya and Abhipratarin Kakshaseni, were sitting at their food, with servants waiting on them. A young student of the Veda came to the door and begged for a share. They gave him nothing.

The student did not go away. He spoke a riddle instead.

"One god has swallowed four great ones. Who is he, that guardian of the world? Mortals do not see him, Kapeya, though he lives in many places, Abhipratarin. This food belongs to him, and it has not been given to him."

The servants stood still. Shaunaka Kapeya turned the words over in his mind. Then he got up from his meal and went to the boy.

"He is the self of the gods," he answered, "and the maker of creatures. He has golden tusks. He is an eater, and he is not without understanding. His greatness is called great because nobody eats him, while he eats even what is not food. That is how we understand him, student."

Then he turned to the servants.

"Give him food."

And they fed him. The four great ones the wind swallows are fire, sun, moon and water. The four the breath swallows are speech, sight, hearing and mind. The student had asked for alms in the name of the one who eats them all.