अथ हेममासन्यम् प्राणमूचुः, त्वं न उद्गायेति; तथेति, तेभ्य एष प्राण उदगायत्; ते विदुरनेन वै न उद्गात्रात्येष्यन्तीति, तमभिद्रुत्य पप्मनाविध्यन्; स यथाश्मानमृत्वा लोष्टो विध्वंसेत, एवं हैव विध्वंसमाना विष्वञ्चो विनेशुः, ततो देवा अभवन्, पराऽसुराः; भवत्यात्मना, परास्य द्विषन्भ्रातृव्यो भवति य एवं वेद ॥ ७ ॥
atha hemamāsanyam prāṇamūcuḥ, tvaṃ na udgāyeti; tatheti, tebhya eṣa prāṇa udagāyat; te viduranena vai na udgātrātyeṣyantīti, tamabhidrutya papmanāvidhyan; sa yathāśmānamṛtvā loṣṭo vidhvaṃseta, evaṃ haiva vidhvaṃsamānā viṣvañco vineśuḥ, tato devā abhavan, parā’surāḥ; bhavatyātmanā, parāsya dviṣanbhrātṛvyo bhavati ya evaṃ veda || 7 ||
7. Then they said to this vital force in the mouth, ‘Chant (the Udgītha) for us.’ ‘All right,’ said the vital force and chanted for them. The Asuras knew that through this chanter the gods would surpass them. They charged it and wanted to strike it with evil. But as a clod of earth, striking against a rock, is shattered, so were they shattered, flung in all directions, and perished. Therefore the gods became (fire etc.), and the Asuras were crushed. He who knows thus becomes his true self, and his envious kinsman is crushed.
Then they said to this —pointing it out—vital force in the mouth, having its seat in the oral cavity, ‘Chant (the Udgītha) for us.’ ‘All right,’ said the vital force to the gods who sought its protection, and chanted, etc. All this has been explained. The Asuras wanted to strike it, the vital force in the mouth, which was free from taint, with evil, the taint of their own attachment. Having succeeded with the organ of speech etc., they, through the persistence of that habit, desired to contaminate it too, but perished, were routed. How? This is being illustrated: As in life a clod of earth, striking against a rock, hurled at it with the intention of crushing it, is itself shattered or crushed to atoms, so were they shattered, flung in all directions, and perished. Because it so happened, therefore, owing to this destruction of the Asuras—i.e. dissociation from the evils due to natural attachment, which checked the manifestation of their divinity—by virtue of taking refuge in the vital force in the mouth, which is ever unattached, the gods, the organs that are under consideration, became —what?—their own divine selves, fire and so forth, to be mentioned later on. Formerly also they had been fire and so on, but with their knowledge covered by natural evil, they had identified themselves with the body alone. On the cessation of that evil they gave up their identification with the body; and the organ of speech and the rest realised their identity with fire and so on, as taught by the scriptures. And the Asuras, their enemies, were crushed.
The sacrificer of a past age who is mentioned in the story, coming across this Vedic allegory, tested in the same order the deity of speech and the rest, discarded them as stricken with the taint of attachment, identified himself with the taintless vital force in the mouth, and thereby giving up his limited identification with the body only, as represented by the organ of speech and the rest, identified himself with the body of Virāj, his present status of Prajāpati, which, as the scriptures say, represents the identification of the organ of speech etc. with fire and so on. Similarly the sacrificer of to-day, by the same procedure, becomes his true self, as Prajāpati. And his envious kinsman, the evil that opposes his attainment of the status of Prajāpati, is crushed. A kinsman is sometimes friendly, as, for instance, Bharata. But the evil due to attachment to sense-objects is an envious kinsman, for it hides one’s real nature as the Self. It is crushed like the clod of earth by one’s union with the vital force. Who gets this result? He who knows thus, i.e. like the ancient sacriñcer realises his identity with the vital force described above.
Having finished with the result (of meditation on the vital force) the Śruti resumes its allegorical form and goes on. Why should the vital force in the mouth be resorted to as one’s self, to the exclusion of the organ of speech and the rest? To explain this by stating reasons, the Śruti points out through the story that it is because the vital force is the common self of the organ of speech etc. as well as of the body.