Why Should a Vedāntin Care About the Ten Prāṇas?
Why Should a Vedāntin Care About the Ten Prā ṇ as? A recent discussion began with a very reasonable question. While reading Laghu Vāsudeva Mananam , one encounters not merely the familiar five prā ṇ as, prā ṇ a, apāna, vyāna, udāna and samāna, but also the five subsidiary prā ṇ as, nāga, kūrma, k ṛ kara, devadatta and dhanañjaya. The question was essentially this: for a serious Vedānta student, is this level of detail really necessary? If a vedānta student already understands that prā ṇ a belongs to anātman, why spend mental cycles remembering which prā ṇ a performs which function? Is this not somewhat “out of syllabus”? It is a fair question. My response (after deep consideration which I put forth in this blog) is that the value of this material is not in memorizing a physiological taxonomy. Its value is in becoming sufficiently familiar with the field of the prā ṇ amaya kośa so that when our ātma-anātma-viveka concerning it is assimilated, we will never fall into t...