What the Veda here states is, moreover, a matter of observation, for during sleep, while the process of breathing goes on uninterruptedly, the activity of the sense organs is interrupted and again becomes manifest at the time of awaking only.  And as the sense organs are the essence of all material beings, the complementary passage which speaks of the merging and emerging of the beings can be reconciled with the principal vital air also.  Moreover, subsequently to pra/n/a being mentioned as the divinity of the prastava the sun and food are designated as the divinities of the udgitha and the pratibara.  Now as they are not Brahman, the pra/n/a also, by parity of reasoning, cannot be Brahman.

To this argumentation the author of the Sutras replies:  For the same reason pra/n/a—­that means:  on account of the presence of characteristic marks—­which constituted the reason stated in the preceding Sutra—­the word pra/n/a also must be held to denote Brahman.  For Scripture says of pra/n/a also, that it is connected with marks characteristic of Brahman.  The sentence, ’All these beings merge into breath alone, and from breath they arise,’ which declares that the origination and retractation of all beings depend on pra/n/a, clearly shows pra/n/a to be Brahman.  In reply to the assertion that the origination and retractation of all beings can be reconciled equally well with the assumption of pra/n/a denoting the chief vital air, because origination and retractation take place in the state of waking and of sleep also, we remark that in those two states only the senses are merged into, and emerge from, the chief vital air, while, according to the scriptural passage, ‘For all these beings, &c.,’ all beings whatever into which a living Self has entered, together with their senses and bodies, merge and emerge by turns.  And even if the word ‘beings’ were taken (not in the sense of animated beings, but) in the sense of material elements in general, there would be nothing in the way of interpreting the passage as referring to Brahman.—­But, it may be said, that the senses together with their objects do, during sleep, enter into pra/n/a, and again issue from it at the time of waking, we distinctly learn from another scriptural passage, viz.  Kau.  Up.  III, 3, ’When a man being thus asleep sees no dream whatever, he becomes one with that pra/n/a alone.  Then speech goes to him with all names,’ &c.—­True, we reply, but there also the word pra/n/a denotes (not the vital air) but Brahman, as we conclude from characteristic marks of Brahman being mentioned.  The objection, again, that the word pra/n/a cannot denote Brahman because it occurs in proximity to the words ‘food’ and ‘sun’ (which do not refer to Brahman), is altogether baseless; for proximity is of no avail against the force of the complementary passage which intimates that pra/n/a is Brahman.  That argument, finally, which rests on the fact that the word pra/n/a commonly denotes the vital air with its five modifications, is to be refuted in the same way as the parallel argument which the purvapakshin brought forward with reference to the word ‘ether.’  From all this it follows that the pra/n/a, which is the deity of the prastava, is Brahman.