Chapter 186

“Bharadwaja said, ‘If it is the wind that keeps us alive, if it is thewind that causes us to move and exert, if it is the wind that causes usto breathe and to speak, then it seems that life is worth little. If theanimal heat (that digests all food) be of the nature of fire, and if itis that fire which assists at digestion by dissolving the food we take,then life is worth little. When an animal dies, that which is called itslife is never seen leaving it. Only the breath leaves it, and theinternal heat becomes extinguished. If life were nothing else, than wind,or if life depended only on the wind, then it could have been seen likethe external sea of air, and when passing out it would have mingled withthat air. If life dependest upon air, and if it ended with the escape ofthat air from the body, it would then mingle with another portion of air(that exists externally) like a portion of water escaping into the greatocean and thereby only changing the place of its residence. If a quantityof water be thrown into a well, or if the flame of a lamp be thrown intoa blazing fire, either of them, entering a homogeneous element, loses itsindependent or separate existence. If life were air, it also, when theanimal died, would mingle with the great ocean of air outside. How can wesay that there is life in this animal body which is made up of the five(primal) elements? If one of those elements disappear, the union of theother four becomes dissolved. The element of water drieth up if food benot taken. The element of air disappears if the breath be restrained. Theelement of space disappears if the excretions cease. So also the elementof fire becomes extinguished if food does not go in. The element of earthbreaks in pieces in consequence of diseases, wounds, and othersufferings. If only one of the five becomes afflicted, the union, beingdissolved, the five go away into five different directions. When the bodywhich is a union of the elements, becomes separated into fiveingredients, whither doth life go? What doth it then know? What doth itthen hear? What doth it then say? This cow (that is given away to a holyBrahmana), it is said, will rescue me in the other world. The animal,however, that is given away, itself dies. Whom then will this cow rescue?The taker of the cow (in gift) and the giver are both equal (in beingboth subject to death). Both of them meet with extinction in this world.How then will they meet again? How will the person that has been eaten upby birds, or that has been broken in pieces by a fall from a mountainsummit, or that has been consumed by fire, regain life? The root of atree that has been cut down does not grow up again. Only the seeds putforth sprouts. Where is the person who having died comes back (to somesort of new existence)? Only seeds were originally created. All thisuniverse is the result of seeds in succession. They that die, die toperish Seeds result from seeds.'”