पृथिवी अन्तरिक्षम् द्यौः दिशः अवान्तरदिशः अग्निः वायुः आदित्यः चन्द्रमाः नक्षत्राणि आपः ओषधयः वनस्पतयः आकाशः आत्मा इति अधिभूतम् अथ अध्यात्मम् प्राणः व्यानः अपानः उदानः समानः चक्षुः श्रोत्रम् मनः वाक् त्वक् चर्म मांसम् स्नाव अस्थि मज्जा एतत् अधिविधाय ऋषिः अवोचत् पाङ्क्तम् वै इदम् सर्वम् पाङ्क्तेन एव पाङ्क्तम् स्पृणोति इति
pṛthivī antarikṣam dyauḥ diśaḥ avāntaradiśaḥ agniḥ vāyuḥ ādityaḥ candramāḥ nakṣatrāṇi āpaḥ oṣadhayaḥ vanaspatayaḥ ākāśaḥ ātmā iti adhibhūtam atha adhyātmam prāṇaḥ vyānaḥ apānaḥ udānaḥ samānaḥ cakṣuḥ śrotram manaḥ vāk tvak carma māṃsam snāva asthi majjā etat adhividhāya ṛṣiḥ avocat pāṅktam vai idam sarvam pāṅktena eva pāṅktam spṛṇoti iti
Earth, mid-region, heaven, the quarters, the intermediate quarters; fire, wind, sun, moon, stars; waters, herbs, trees, space, the Ātman — this is with reference to beings. Now with reference to oneself: prāṇa, vyāna, apāna, udāna, samāna; sight, hearing, mind, speech, touch; skin, flesh, sinew, bone, marrow. Having established this, the ṛṣi said: "Fivefold is all this; by the fivefold one obtains the fivefold."
d739bfdf924d · published Jul 26, 2026, 7:50:25 PM UTC
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A lesson on pentads — the pāṅkta-vidyā. Three outer rows of five: the worlds (earth, mid-region, heaven, the quarters, the intermediate quarters), the luminaries (fire, wind, sun, moon, stars), nature (waters, herbs, trees, space — and the Ātman crowning the row of beings). Three inner rows of five: the breaths (prāṇa, vyāna, apāna, udāna, samāna), the faculties (sight, hearing, mind, speech, touch), the tissues (skin, flesh, sinew, bone, marrow).
pāṅktaṁ vā idaṁ sarvam — "fivefold is all this": pāṅkta comes from paṅkti, the five-footed Vedic metre: the world is composed in the same metre as a hymn! A poetic measure turns out to be the structure of the universe: the cosmos is poetry laid out in fives, and the human body is a stanza of the same poem.
pāṅktenaiva pāṅktaṁ spṛṇoti — "by the fivefold one obtains the fivefold": by contemplating the correspondence of his own pentads to the world's pentads, a man "redeems" (√spṛ) the world through himself: the microcosm is the key to the macrocosm. This is the exercise of all Vedic anthropology: man is not a grain of sand in the universe — he is its epitome; and therefore self-knowledge is no flight from the world but the shortest road to knowledge of the whole.