Ushman. It is this heat that causes digestion
in all creatures possessed of bodies. The breath
called Prana, the bearer of a current of heat, descends
(from the head) downwards to the extremity of the anal
canal and thence is sent upwards once more. Coming
back to its seat in the head, it once more sends down
the heat it bears. Below the navel is the region
of digested matter. Above it is that for the
food which is taken. In the navel are all the
forces of life that sustain the body. Urged by
the ten kinds of breaths having Prana for their first,
the ducts (already mentioned), branching out from
the heart, convey the liquid juices that food yields,
upwards, downwards, and in transverse directions.[559]
The main duct leading from the mouth to the anus is
the path by which yogins, vanquishers of fatigue,
of perfect equanimity in joy and sorrow, and possessed
of great patience, succeed in attaining to Brahma by
holding the soul within the brain.[560] Even thus
is heat panted in the breaths called Prana and Apana
and others, of all embodied creatures. That heat
is always burning there like a fire placed in any (visible)
vessel.’
“Bharadwaja said, ’If it is the wind that
keeps us alive, if it is the wind that causes us to
move and exert, if it is the wind that causes us to
breathe and to speak, then it seems that life is worth
little. If the animal heat (that digests all
food) be of the nature of fire, and if it is 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 its life is never seen
leaving it. Only the breath leaves it, and the
internal heat becomes extinguished. If life were
nothing else, than wind, or if life depended only
on the wind, then it could have been seen like the
external sea of air, and when passing out it would
have mingled with that air. If life dependest
upon air, and if it ended with the escape of that
air from the body, it would then mingle with another
portion of air (that exists externally) like a portion
of water escaping into the great ocean and thereby
only changing the place of its residence. If a
quantity of water be thrown into a well, or if the
flame of a lamp be thrown into a blazing fire, either
of them, entering a homogeneous element, loses its
independent or separate existence. If life were
air, it also, when the animal died, would mingle with
the great ocean of air outside. How can we say
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 the other four becomes
dissolved. The element of water drieth up if food
be not taken. The element of air disappears if
the breath be restrained. The element of space
disappears if the excretions cease. So also the
element of fire becomes extinguished if food does
not go in. The element of earth breaks in pieces
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