Where air is toxic, breath becomes penance

Sans the Sacred

We hear about all kinds of torturous penance in the epics and puranas – some sages meditate while standing upside down, yet others stand on one foot, and some keep meditating while anthills grow around them. In the Kumarasambhava, Kalidasa describes Parvati’s penance to Shiva – and she initially retires to the forest and subsists on just the food she finds there. Then, when Shiva does not appear, she steps up the penance, eating only dried leaves that have fallen off the tree by themselves. And then, she gives up that, which gets her the name ‘Aparna’, the one who has given up leaves! And then, she gives that up too, living only off any water she happens upon without searching for it, and on the sunrays that fall on her as she performs penance.

In summer, she also stands in the midst of four fires, looking up at the fifth – the sun. And in the winter, she stands in cold water in the night, still and in meditation. If you are now thinking you would decidedly not sign up for such an exercise, I would urge you to think about those living in northern India, breathing in toxic air with every breath, no end in sight – and no boons to look forward to either. In that spirit, here is your introduction to Vayu, the god of air, and of life itself.

Vayu is a major deity as far back as the Rig Veda. Living, in ancient Indian thought, is only possible if the five pranas, or life forces, are functioning inside you – and these are linked to Vayu. The Chandogya Upanishad tells us a story. Once, all the senses were quarrelling amongst themselves about who the greatest among them was. So they went to the creator, Prajapati, and asked him – “Who is the best amongst us?” Prajapati wisely replied – “Whichever of you the body has the most trouble without, that one is the best.” And so, each of them decided to leave the body, turn by turn, for a year.

First went speech. After a year, speech came back to ask the others how they fared without it. And the others replied that they lived, much like someone who cannot speak does, but still breathing with the breath, seeing with the eyes, hearing with the ears, and thinking with the mind. Then, it was sight’s turn to go away. When sight returned, it asked the others how they had fared without it. And they replied that they lived as the blind do, but lived they did, hearing with the ears, speaking with speech, and thinking with the mind. Then, hearing went away. And you can guess the answer the others gave it when it returned. Then, off went the mind. When the mind returned, asking the others how they lived, they replied that they lived as fools do, still hearing, seeing, and speaking.

Finally, it was the turn of prana, the breath. As breath began to leave, it pulled all the other senses with it – just as a fleeing horse drags with it all the stakes that it is tethered to. And so they all surrounded prana and pleaded – “You are the greatest of us all! Please do not leave.” And that is the story of how important breathing is!

Are you thinking now that you expected the Upanishads to have stories that are more profound? Surely everybody knows without experimenting that breathing and air are indispensable to life. You would think so, wouldn’t you? But look at us in the twenty-first century, where clean air is still so difficult to come by in the very land that the Upanishads were revealed!