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7-Kaushalya and Pippalaad Dialog

The following story is taken from Prashn Upanishad. It is the dialog between Kaushalya and Muni Pippalaad.

Kausalya, son of Ashwal, questioned Pippalaad - "O Bhagavan Pippalaad, Whence is this
Praan born? How does it come into this body? How does it abide after it has divided itself? How does it go out? How does it support what is without? How does it support all within the body?"

Pippalaad replied - "You ask questions about transcendental matters. I will explain to thee because you are a great enquirer of Brahm. This Praan is born of the Aatmaa. As is this shadow in the man, so is this Praan in the Aatmaa. By the action of the mind this enters into this body. As a king commands his officers, saying to them, "Govern these or those villages", so does this Praan dispose the other Praan, each for their separate allotted work.

The Apaan Praan dwells in the organs of excretion and generation: the Praan itself abides in the eye, ear, mouth and nose. In the middle is Samaan Praan. It distributes the food supplied equally and the seven flames proceed from it. This Aatmaa is in the heart. Here there are a hundred and one nerves (arteries). Each of them has a hundred branches; again every one of these has seventy-two thousand sub-branches. In these nerves, the Vyaan moves.

Again, through one other, the Udaan Praan ascending, leads us upwards to the virtuous world by good work; to sinful worlds by sin: and to the world of men by virtue and sin combined.
The sun verily is the external Praan. He rises and assists the Praan in the eye. The goddess of the earth attracts Apaan Praan downwards. The other (between the Sun and the Earth) Praan is Samaan Praan. The wind is Vyaan. The external fire indeed is Udaan. Therefore, he whose fire has gone out, enters another body with his senses absorbed in the mind.

Whatever his thought (at the time of death), with that he attains Praan: and the Praan united with Udaan together with the Jeevaatmaa, leads on to the world thought of. The learned man who knows Praan thus his offspring does not perish and he becomes immortal. He who knows the origin, the entry, the seat, the fivefold distribution of Praan and its internal state in the body, obtains immortality, yes, obtains immortality".
 

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