Śaṅkaraon Brahma Sūtra 2.4.11

The objection urged, viz. that there would result another sense-object, is not valid ; because the pra«a is not an instrument. For we do not assume that the pr&wa is, like the eye, an organ because it determines a special sense-object. Nor is it on that account devoid of an effect; since scripture declares that the chief vital air has a specific effect which cannot belong to the other prawas. For in the so-called colloquies of the prd;/as we read in the beginning, ‘The prawas quarrelled together who was best;’ after that we read, ‘ He by whose departure the body seems worse than worst, he is the best of you;’ thereupon the text, after showing how, on the successive departure of speech and so on, the life of the body, although deprived of one particular function, went on as before, finally relates that as soon as the chief prawa was about to depart all other prawas became loosened and the body was about to perish ; which shows that the body and all the senses subsist by means of the chief pra;/a. The same thing is declared by another passage, ‘ Then pr^;/a as the best said to them : Be not deceived ; I alone dividing myself fivefold support this body and keep it’ (Pr. Up. II, 3). Another passage, viz. ‘ With prawa guarding the lower nest ’ (Br/. Up. IV, 3, 12), shows that the guarding of the body depends on prawa. Again, two other passages show that the nourishing of the body depends on pra/za, ‘ From whatever limb prawa goes away that limb withers’ (Bri. Up. I, 3, 19), and ‘ What we eat and drink with it supports the other vital breaths.’ And another passage declares that the soul’s departing and staying depend on pr^wa, ‘ What is it by whose departure I shall depart, and by whose staying I shall stay?—The created pra;/a’ (Pr. Up. VI, 3 ; 4).