her, water, and earth, that they
are connected with the qualities of having good light, &c., and, in
order to disparage devout meditation on them singly, that they stand to
the Vai/s/vanara in the relation of being his head, &c., merely; and
then finally (V, 18) it is said, 'But he who meditates on the
Vai/s/vanara Self as measured by a span, as abhivimana[153], he eats
food in all worlds, in all beings, in all Selfs. Of that Vai/s/vanara
Self the head is Sutejas (having good light), the eye Vi/s/varupa
(multiform), the breath P/ri/thagvartman (moving in various courses),
the trunk Bahula (full), the bladder Rayi (wealth), the feet the earth,
the chest the altar, the hairs the grass on the altar, the heart the
Garhapatya fire, the mind the Anvaharya fire, the mouth the Ahavaniya
fire.'--Here the doubt arises whether by the term 'Vai/s/vanara' we have
to understand the gastric fire, or the elemental fire, or the divinity
presiding over the latter, or the embodied soul, or the highest
Lord.--But what, it may be asked, gives rise to this doubt?--The
circumstance, we reply, of 'Vai/s/vanara' being employed as a common
term for the gastric fire, the elemental fire, and the divinity of the
latter, while 'Self' is a term applying to the embodied soul as well as
to the highest Lord. Hence the doubt arises which meaning of the term is
to be accepted and which to be set aside.

Which, then, is the alternative to be embraced?--Vai/s/vanara, the
purvapakshin maintains, is the gastric fire, because we meet, in some
passages, with the term used in that special sense; so, for instance
(B/ri/. Up. V, 9), 'Agni Vai/s/vanara is the fire within man by which
the food that is eaten is cooked.'--Or else the term may denote fire in
general, as we see it used in that sense also; so, for instance
(/Ri/g-veda Sa/m/h. X, 88, 12), 'For the whole world the gods have made
the Agni Vai/s/vanara a sign of the days.' Or, in the third place, the
word may denote that divinity whose body is fire. For passages in which
the term has that sense are likewise met with; compare, for instance,
/Ri/g-veda Sa/m/h. I, 98, 1, 'May we be in the favour of Vai/s/vanara;
for he is the king of the beings, giving pleasure, of ready grace;' this
and similar passages properly applying to a divinity endowed with power
and similar qualities. Perhaps it will be urged against the preceding
explanations, that, as the word Vai/s/vanara is used in co-ordination
with the term 'Self