A living body can be lifted or carried very easily. But, it takes at least three to four people to lift a corpse. This is because after death the body loses its buoyancy. It is the prana that gives body its buoyancy or lightness. I weigh almost 70 kgs but can’t just feel my weight. The reason for that is that I have prana in my body.
Let me elaborate a little more.
All the functions of our body are performed by the Prana. It is prana that protects us against disease, operates the senses, communicates hunger and thirst, and throws out the excrement. Every day many cells in the body are destroyed and new ones are formed. When there is a wound, Prana pays more attention to that area and works to heal the wound quickly. In short, prana is the active energy that is always going on inside the body according to the cosmic knowledge. Prana, which coordinates all these, divides itself into five i.e, Pranan, Apanan, Samanan, Udanan and Vyanan.
For all of you, I am a priest. But it’s just one of my duties. Apart from that , I am also a husband, father, son and a brother. Just like the way I carry out all these roles ,our pranan also performs five duties. For example, just as the wife helping the husband to perform his duty, as the father helping his child to perform his duty, Panchaprana also has five suppoters. These are called as Panchavayus. Nagan, Kurman, Krikalan, Devadatta and Dhananjayan are the Panchavayus or the sub-pranas of Prana. It is often understood as Nagan for Pranan and Kurman for Apanan.
We have five senses. They are eye, nose, tongue, ear and skin. Similarly there are Karmenthriyas. They are the mouth, hand, foot, anus and genitals. Mind is definitely there. Pranan takes control of all these. It will be explained in the next article.
Let me conclude by making a couple of very brief points.
The body is a factory full of complexities beyond human imagination. Think of all its organs as hardware in the computer. Pranan becomes its software with even more complexities.
The first and foremost dharma of these divided pranas are as follows. The main karma of pranan is breathing and thinking. The function of saman is to maintain body heat. If it withdraws, the body starts to cool down. And it will get tough. When Apanan withdraws, all movements related to our five senses ceases. Udanan’s case was mentioned at the beginning of the article. Adanan gives buoyancy or lightness to the body. As the vyanan withdraws, the body begins to decompose.
It was said in the last article that pranan and soul are different from one another. Let it be noted so as to understand that even if our jeevan is lost, if the pranan is present in the body, many organs and senses will continue to function for some time. That’s why we are able to do organ donation.
Poojari Manoj K Viswanathan