EIGHTEENTH KHANDA.

1. Then he said to them all: 'You eat your food, knowing that Vaisvanara Self as if it were many. But he who worships the Vaisvanara Self as a span long, and as identical with himself, he eats food in all worlds, in all beings, in all Selfs.

2. 'Of that Vaisvanara Self the head is Sutegas (having good light), the eye Visvarupa (multiform), the breath Prithagvartman (having various courses), the trunk Bahula (full), the bladder Rayi (wealth), the feet the earth, the chest the altar, the hairs the grass on the altar, the heart the Garhapatya fire, the mind the Anvaharya fire, the mouth the Ahavaniya fire.

Footnotes

^88:1 The two words pradesamatra and abhivimana are doubtful. The commentator explains the first in different ways, which are all more or less fanciful. He is measured or known (matra) as Self, by means of heaven as his head and the earth as his feet, these being the pradesas; or, in the mouth and the rest, which are instruments, he is known as without action himself; or, he has the length from heaven to earth, heaven and earth being called pradesa, because they are taught. The interpretation, supported by the Gabalasruti, that pradesa is the measure from the forehead to the chin, he rejects. Abhivimana is taken in the same meaning as abhimana in the Vedanta, seeing everything in oneself. Vaisvanara is taken as the real Self of all beings, and, in the end, of all Selfs, and as thus to be known and worshipped.