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positioning of local and larger realities in relation to one another. We may notice also such passages as Chandogya 1.6-7, in which the three kinds of Vedic texts are correlated with cosmological and psychosomatic realities, and 2.2-7 and 2.8-22, in which the parts of sung verses (samans) are elaborately correlated to referents interior and exterior to the meditator. |
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There are also inquiries which require the student to trace a path back through time "to the beginning." Chandogya 6.1-8 proposes this kind of analysis of the derivation of things one from anotherfire, water, food, and their respective derivatives; Chandogya 7 is comprised wholly of a genealogical search, an analysis of the formal, traditional representation of religious knowledge back into more basic forms: from the Vedic texts as name, to speech, mind, intention, discursive thinking, meditation, knowledge, strength, food, water, heat, ether, memory, hope and breath. The words alone communicate little; they must be properly used, in their proper order, if one is to profit from them. |
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Let us examine one text in detail, Taittiriya 2.1-6a.
5 The passage is structured around five sheaths (kosa),each a complex arrangement of parts, accessible only when the prior sheath has been understood; together they constitute the "layers" of the human person: i. food (anna), ii. vital breath (prana),iii. mind (manas),iv. knowledge (vijnana) and v. bliss (ananda).In teaching about the self through a presentation of these sheaths, the passage expends considerable effort in order to say something about Brahman while at the same time regulating how what is said is to be received by the reader. Here is the text: |
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1. One who knows Brahman reaches the highest. About that there is this verse:6 |
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"Brahman is reality, knowledge, infinite; he who knows it concealed in the cavity of the heart and in the highest space, attains all wishes, along with omniscient Brahman." |
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Out of this self, indeed, emerges ether, out of ether wind, out of wind fire, out of fire water, out of water earth, out of earth plants, out of plants food, out of food man. This one, |
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