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ANUGITA
CHAPTER IX
Page1
The Brahmana said :
On this, too, they relate this ancient story, a dialogue between Narada and the sage Devamata.
Devamata said :
When a creature is about to be born, what comes into existence first, his Prana, or Apana, or Samana, or Vyana, or else Udana?
Narada said :
By whichever the creature is produced, that which is other than this first comes to him. And the pairs of the life-winds should be understood, which (move) upwards, or downwards, or transversely.
Devamata said :
By which (of the life-winds) is a creature produced? and which (of them) first comes to him? Explain to me also the pairs of the life-winds, which (move) upwards, or downwards, or transversely.
Narada said :
Pleasure is produced from a mental operation 1, and (it) is also produced from a sound, (it) is also produced from taste, and (it) is also produced from colour, and (it) is also produced from touch, and (it) is also produced from smell. This is the effect 2 of the Udana; the pleasure is produced from union 3. From desire the semen is produced; and from the semen is produced menstrual excretion. The semen and the blood are produced by the Samana and the Vyana in common 4.
Footnotes :
1. I. e. desire. 'Sound' = recollection of a woman's voice; taste,' scil. of chastity; 'colour' = the beauty of a woman, Arguna Misra Cf. Âpastamba I, 2, 7, 8, and Lalita Vistara.
2. Literally, 'form,' which Arguna Misra interprets to mean effect, and adds, 'The Udana causes mental activity, and by mental activity sound &c. are apprehended.'
3. I. e. of Udana and mind, Arguna Misra; adding, 'the result is that a creature is produced by the Udana.'
4. Or, perhaps, generally, that is to say, the store of them, the specific semen being produced from desire, as before stated. The Samana's function is the digestion of food, and that of the Vyana is the distribution of the digested food to the whole body through the nadis, hence the proposition in the text.
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