INTERPRETATION
OF BU(M) 1.5.10=BU(K) 1.5.3 BU(M) 1.5.2.ff is a commentary on verses quoted in 1.5.1. These verses describe the seven kinds of food which Prajgtpati created. Of these seven, the verses say that he created three for himself, and the prose commentary identifies them as mind, speech, and breath. These three comprise the self: w 10 (etanmryo va ayrm dtm~ valima 'yo manomryah, prdn. amryah.). The passage explains that within the self, the mind (mdnas) comprises all thoughts, feelings, and mental dispositions and the breath (prdn. 6) comprises all the vital breaths in the body. 1 In between the explanations of mind and breath, the text gives an analysis of speech, which is the subject of this paper. After these discussions of mind, speech, and breath, the text says that these three principles correspond to the three worlds; the three Vedas; gods, ancestors and humans; father, mother and child; known, knowable, and unknowable; earth, heaven, and water; and fire, sun, and moon. In short, the threefold division of the self corresponds to the threefold division of every sphere of e.,dstence. Finally, the passage concludes: BU(M) 1.5.21 t6 et~ srtva ev6 sam~h srrve 'nant~h . . . y6 hait~n anantan up~ste 'nantrm s6 lokrm jayati "So these [three] are all equal, are all endless. He who respects: these as the endless conquers a world that is endless. "3
In BU(M) 1.5.10, the Upanis.ad sets forth the role of speech: ydh. kdg ca ~dbdo vag evd s~, esa hy 6ntam ayattd, esa hi n6. Radhakrishnan's translation ~ of this passage follows ~amkara's commentary: "Whatever sound there is, it is just speech. Verily, it serves to determine an end (object), but is not itself (determined or revealed). ''5 At the very least, this translation is rather forced. First, it imports into the passage a view of speech as that which reveals but is not itself revealed, although neither the context nor the phrase dntam ayattd readily suggest it. Nor does this interpretation make clear what such an understanding of speech has to do with the opening identification of all sound as speech. According to ~amkara's comments, yf.h k6~ ca grbdo v~g ev6 s~ describes the nature (svarEtpa) of speech, while the remainder of the passage concerns its function (kdtya). But he does not explain how its function derives from its nature, and thus he allows the passage to fall into two unrelated parts. This separation is reflected in Radhakrishnan's translation, which has a full stop after the first half and suggests no relation between the two parts of the passage. Note that in