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Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 2 Mantra 5

Mantra

na̱ prāṇe̱na nā̍pāṇe̱na̱ ma̱rtyo jī̍vati̱ kaśca̍na |
i̱tare̱ṇa tu̍ jīva̱nti̱ ya̱sminn etāv u̱pāśri̍tau ||

na prāṇena na apāṇena = neither through the function of exhaling nor inhaling; kaḥ cana martyaḥ = [does] any mortal being; jīvati = live; tu = but; itareṇa = by another (something else); jīvanti = [do] they live; yasmin = that upon which; etāu = these two (inspiration and expiration); upāśritau = are dependant.

Not by Prana, not by Apana does any mortal live; but it is by some other, on which these two depend, that men live.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

One who has followed the commentaries, and therefore the Mantras so far, should not find any difficulty at all in understanding the direct statement of the Sruti when she says that a man lives not because his body-mind-intellect-equipment is functioning well when the Pranas function, but that all signs of life’s activities met with in a living man, depend upon the glorious touch of the Self in him. The Pranas function only when life resides in the body.

Though the meaning of the stanza is clear and direct, the philosophical implications in the statement of the Sruti are rather new to the early students in the study of the Hindu Sastras.

The parts constituting an assemblage are in themselves not free. They constitute together and maintain themselves as such, only for the benefit of somebody else, who is not himself a part of the assembly. For example, let us take the case of a house. The walls, the rafters, the beams, the tiles, etc., are all necessary parts which constitute together the house. The house is not built for the walls, nor for the rafters, nor for the beans. They all together form an entire whole only for the sake of the Master of the house. Mr. Dass, the owner of the house, has all the freedom to walk in or walk out of his house at his own sweet will; not so, the bricks that constitute the walls!

Similarly, the indriyas, the limbs of the body, the mind and intellect are all parts of the body assembly which exists only for the same of the Purusha in it. The body in itself has no freedom to act as it lists, while the Purusha can walk out of the body in all freedom at the time of death. When once Mr.Dass had discarded his house, in time, it perishes in ruins; when the Atman leaves the body, the body perishes. The Source of Life is not the Pranas; the Pranas end and perish themselves, when the Atman, the Source of Life, discards its temple, the body.

In the terminology of sastra, they say that all actions physical, mental and intellectual, are Prana-Vrttis.

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