अथ ह इमम् आसन्यम् प्राणम् ऊचुः त्वं नः उद्गाय इति तथा इति तेभ्यः एषः प्राणः उदगायत् ते अविदुः अनेन वै नः उद्गात्रा अत्येष्यन्ति इति तम् अभिद्रुत्य पाप्मना विव्यत्सन् सः यथा अश्मानम् ऋत्वा लोष्टः विध्वंसेत एवम् ह एव विध्वंसमानाः विष्वञ्चः विनेशुः ततः देवाः अभवन् परा असुराः भवति आत्मना परा अस्य द्विषन् भ्रातृव्यः भवति यः एवम् वेद
atha ha imam āsanyam prāṇam ūcuḥ tvaṃ naḥ udgāya iti tathā iti tebhyaḥ eṣaḥ prāṇaḥ udagāyat te aviduḥ anena vai naḥ udgātrā atyeṣyanti iti tam abhidrutya pāpmanā vivyatsan saḥ yathā aśmānam ṛtvā loṣṭaḥ vidhvaṃseta evam ha eva vidhvaṃsamānāḥ viṣvañcaḥ vineśuḥ tataḥ devāḥ abhavan parā asurāḥ bhavati ātmanā parā asya dviṣan bhrātṛvyaḥ bhavati yaḥ evam veda
Then they said to this breath in the mouth: "Sing the udgītha for us!" — "So be it," and this breath sang for them. The asuras understood: "With this singer they will surpass us!" — they fell upon it to pierce it with evil. But as a clod of earth striking against a stone flies to pieces, so they flew apart in all directions and perished. Then the gods rose and the asuras fell. He rises by himself, and his hating rival falls — he who knows thus.
cef858208d33 · published Jul 27, 2026, 12:39:35 AM UTC
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The sixth singer is the āsanya prāṇa, the breath in the mouth, the chief prāṇa: life itself, singing through a throat. The asuras rush at it with the momentum of their earlier victories — and are shattered "as a clod of earth against a stone": loṣṭo vidhvaṁseta. The image is magnificently exact: the evil is not repelled by a blow — it broke itself upon invulnerability. A stone need not make war on clods.
Why is the prāṇa invulnerable? The answer has already been given by contraries: it has no private share. Breath does not choose "the good piece" for itself: it alone serves all the senses without remainder and keeps nothing back — there is nothing in it to bribe and nothing to prick. Disinterestedness is not a morality but an armour: evil enters only through the chink of "for myself", and where there is no chink it crumbles to dust.
"Then the gods rose and the asuras fell" — the outcome of the world's battle was decided by one pure singer. So it is in the heart: darkness is defeated not by re-educated senses but by the disinterested life found within, singing to God — and beside it the "hating rival" falls of himself, like everything that stood only upon another's wound.