Footnotes

^4:1 A very similar story is told in the Brihad-aranyaka I, 1, 3, 1. But though the coincidences between the two are considerable, amounting sometimes to verbal identity, the purport of the two seems to be different. See Vedanta-sutra III, 3, 6.

^4:2 Devas and Asuras, gods and demons, are here explained by the commentator as the good and evil inclinations of man; Pragapati as man in general.

^4:3 Udgitha stands, according to the commentator, for the sacrificial act to be performed by the Udgatri, the Sama-veda priest, with the udgitha hymns; and as these sacrificial acts always form part of the Gyotishtoma &c., these great Soma-sacrifices are really intended. In the second place, however, the commentator takes udgitha in the sense of Udgatri, the performer of the udgitha, which is or was by the Devas thought to be the breath in the nose. I have preferred to take udgitha in the sense of Om, and all that is implied by it.

^4:4 They asked that breath should recite the udgitha. Comm.

^5:1 Mukhya prana is used in two senses, the principal or vital breath, also called sreshtha, and the breath in the mouth, also called asanya.

^5:2 According to the commentator, the assemblage of the other vital breaths or senses is here meant. They depart when the breath of the mouth, sometimes called sarvambhari, all-supporting, does no longer, by eating and drinking, support them.

^6:1 The paragraphs from 10 to 14 are differently explained by Indian commentators. By treating the nominatives angiras, brihaspatis, and ayasyas (here the printed text reads ayasyam) as accusatives, or by admitting the omission of an iti after them, they connect paragraphs 9, 10, and 11 with paragraph 12, and thus gain the meaning that Vaka Dalbhya meditated on the breath in the mouth as Angiras, Brihaspati, and Ayasya, instead of those saints having themselves thus meditated; and that he, knowing the secret names and qualities of the breath, obtained, when acting as Udgatri priest, the wishes of those for whom he sacrificed. Tena is difficult to explain, unless we take it in the sense of tenanusishtah, taught by him.

^6:2 Adhyatma means with reference to the body, not with reference to the self or the soul. Having explained the symbolical meaning of Om as applied to the body and its organs of sense, he now explains its symbolical meaning adhidaivatam, i.e. as applied to divine beings.