substance, and so is the sun brown, white, blue, yellow, and red.
2. As a very long highway goes to two places, to one at the beginning, and to another at the end, so do the rays of the sun go to both worlds, to this one and to the other. They start from the sun, and enter into those arteries; they start from those arteries, and enter into the sun.
3. And when a man is asleep, reposing, and at perfect rest, so that he sees no dream[1], then he has entered into those arteries. Then no evil touches him, for he has obtained the light (of the sun).
4. And when a man falls ill, then those who sit round him, say, 'Do you know me? Do you know me?' As long as he has not departed from this body, he knows them.
5. But when he departs from this body, then he departs upwards by those very rays (towards the worlds which he has gained by merit, not by knowledge); or he goes out while meditating on Om[2] (and thus securing an entrance into the Brahma-
- ↑ Svapna in Sanskrit is both somnus and somnium. Hence one might translate also, 'so that he is not aware that he is asleep,' which in some respects would seem even more appropriate in our passage; cf. VIII, 11, 1.
- ↑ According to the explanation given of the Om in the Upanishads, and more particularly in the Dahara-vidyâ contained in this Prapâthaka.
false; because it consists of forms and names only; yet these forms and names have a true element in them, viz. the Sat. Before we know that Sat, all the objects we see in waking seem true; as dreams seem true in dreaming. But when once we awake from our waking by true knowledge, we see that nothing is true but the Sat. When we imagine we see a serpent, and then discover that it is a rope, the serpent disappears as false, but what was true in it, the rope, remains true.
