यत्सप्तान्नानि मेधया तपसाजनयत्पिता ।
एकमस्य साधारणम्, द्वे देवानभाजयत् ॥
त्रीण्यात्मनेऽकुरुत, पशुभ्य एकं प्रायच्छत् ।
तस्मिन्सर्वम् प्रतिष्ठितम् यच्च प्राणिति यच्च न ॥
कस्मात्तानि न क्षीयन्तेऽद्यमानानि सर्वदा ।
यो वैतामक्षितिम् वेद सोऽन्नमत्ति प्रतीकेन ॥
स देवानपिगच्छति, स ऊर्जमुपजीवति ॥
इति श्लोकाः ॥ १ ॥yatsaptānnāni medhayā tapasājanayatpitā |
ekamasya sādhāraṇam, dve devānabhājayat ||
trīṇyātmane’kuruta, paśubhya ekaṃ prāyacchat |
tasminsarvam pratiṣṭhitam yacca prāṇiti yacca na ||
kasmāttāni na kṣīyante’dyamānāni sarvadā |
yo vaitāmakṣitim veda so’nnamatti pratīkena ||
sa devānapigacchati, sa ūrjamupajīvati ||
iti ślokāḥ || 1 ||1. That the father produced seven kinds of food through meditation and rites (I shall disclose). One is common to all eaters. Two he apportioned to the gods. Three he designed for himself. And one he gave to the animals. On it rests everything—what lives and what does not. Why are they not exhausted, although they are always being eaten? He who knows this cause of their permanence eats food with Pratīka (pre-eminence). He attains (identity with) the gods and lives on nectar. These are the verses.
Ignorance has been discussed. It has been said in that connection that an ignorant man worships another god, thinking he is different from himself, and that prompted by desire, he, identifying himself with a particular caste and order of life and being regulated by a sense of duty, performs rites such as making offerings in the ñre, which help the gods and others and make him an object of enjoyment to them. And as all beings by their rites individually projected him as their object of enjoyment, so did he by his performance of rites with five factors, such as making offerings in the fire, project all beings as well as the whole universe as his objects of enjoyment. Thus everyone according to his meditation and rites is both the enjoyer and the object of. enjoyment of the whole universe. That is to say, everyone is alternately the cause as well as the effect of everyone else.[1] This we shall describe in the section on knowledge, the meditation on things mutually helpful (II. v.), showing, as a step to the realisation of the unity of the self, how everything is the effect of everything else and helpful to it. The universe which the ignorant man in question projected as his object of enjoyment through his meditation and rites with material ends having five factors, such as making offerings in the fire, being divided in its entirety into seven parts as causes and effects, is called the seven kinds of food, being an object of enjoyment. Hence he is the father of these different kinds of food. These are the verses, Mantras describing in brief these varieties of food together with their uses, and are called Ślokas for that reason.