वाङ्मनसि, दर्शनाच्छब्दाच्च ॥ १ ॥
vāṅmanasi, darśanācchabdācca || 1 ||
vāk—Speech; manasi—in mind; darśanāt—because it is so seen; chabdāt—from scriptural statements; ca—and.
1. Speech (is merged) in mind, because it is so seen, and there are scriptural statements (to that effect).
“When, my dear, the man departs from here, his speech merges in mind, mind in Prana, Prana in Fire, and Fire in the Highest Deity” (Chh. 6. 8. 6). This text describes what happens at the time of death. It says that speech gets merged in mind, mind in Prana, and so on. Now the question is whether the organ of speech as such gets merged in mind, or only its function. The opponent holds that as there is no mention in the text about the function of speech getting merged, we have to understand that the organ itself gets merged in mind.
The Sutra refutes this view and says that only the function of the organ of speech gets merged in mind. Mind is not the material cause of the organs, and as such they cannot get merged in it. It is only in the material cause that the effects get merged, and as mind is not the material cause of the organs, we have to understand here by speech not the organ, but its function. A function of the organ, unlike the organ itself, can get merged in mind, even though it is not the cause of that function, just as the burning property of fire, which has its start in wood, becomes extinct in water. The scriptural statement therefore refers to the function of speech, the function and the thing to which it belongs being viewed as one. We also notice that a dying man first loses his function of speech, though his mind is still functioning. So we have to understand from experience also that the function of speech, and not the organ itself, is merged in mind.