Bhashya
एवं स्वपितिनामप्रसिद्धिद्वारेण यज्जीवस्य सत्यस्वरूपंजगतो मूलम्, तत्पुत्रस्य दर्शयित्वा आह अन्नादिकार्यका-रणपरम्परयापि जगतो मूलं सदिदर्शयिषुः— अशनापिपासेअशितुमिच्छा अशना, सन् यलोपेन, पातुमिच्छा पिपासाते अशनापिपासे अशनापिपासयोः सतत्त्वं विजानीहीत्येतत् ।यत्र यस्मिन्काले एतन्नाम पुरुषो भवति ।किं तत् ? अशिषि-षति अशितुमिच्छतीति ।तदा तस्य पुरुषस्य किंनिमित्तंनाम भवतीति, आह— यत्तत्पुरुषेण अशितमन्नं कठिनंपीता आपो नयन्ते द्रवीकृत्य रसादिभावेन विपरिणमयन्ते,तदा भुक्तमन्नं जीर्यति ।अथ च भवत्यस्य नाम अशिषि-षतीति गौणम् ।जीर्णे हि अन्ने अशितुमिच्छति सर्वो हि जन्तुः ।तत्र अपामशितनेतृत्वात् अशनाया इति नाम प्रसिद्धमि-त्येतस्मिन्नर्थे ।यथा गोनायः गां नयतीति गोनायः इत्यु-च्यते गोपालः, तथा अश्वान्नयतीत्यश्वनायः अश्वपाल इत्यु-च्यते, पुरुषनायः पुरुषान्नयतीति राजा सेनापतिर्वा, एवंतत् तदा अप आचक्षते लौकिकाः अशनायेति विसर्जनीय-लोपेन ।तत्रैवं सति अद्भिः रसादिभावेन नीतेन अशितेना-न्नेन निष्पादितमिदं शरीरं वटकणिकयामिव शुङ्गः अङ्कुरउत्पतितः उद्गतः ; तमिमं शुङ्गं कार्यं शरीराख्यं वटादिशुङ्ग-मृत्पिण्डैः प्रत्यहमुपचीयमानः अन्नमूलः देहशुङ्गः परिनि-ष्पन्न इत्यर्थः ।यत्तु देहशुङ्गस्य मूलमन्नं निर्दिष्टम्, तदपिदेहवद्विनाशोत्पत्तिमत्त्वात् कस्माच्चिन्मूलादुत्पतितं शुङ्ग ए-वेति कृत्वा आह—यथा देहशुङ्गः अन्नमूलः एवमेव खलुसोम्य अन्नेन शुङ्गेन कार्यभूतेन अपो मूलमन्नस्य शुङ्गस्या-न्विच्छ प्रतिपद्यस्व ।अपामपि विनाशोत्पत्तिमत्त्वात् शुङ्ग-त्वमेवेति अद्भिः सोम्य शुङ्गेन कार्येण कारणं तेजो मूलमन्वि-च्छ ।तेजसोऽपि विनाशोत्पत्तिमत्त्वात् शुङ्गत्वमिति तेजसासोम्य शुङ्गेन सन्मूलम् एकमेवाद्वितीयं परमार्थसत्यम् ।यस्मि-न्सर्वमिदं वाचारम्भणं विकारो नामधेयमनृतं रज्ज्वामिवसर्पादिविकल्पजातमध्यस्तमविद्यया, तदस्य जगतो मूलम् ;अतः सन्मूलाः सत्कारणाः हे सोम्य इमाः स्थावरजङ्गमल-क्षणाः सर्वाः प्रजाः ।न केवलं सन्मूला एव, इदानीमपिस्थितिकाले सदायतनाः सदाश्रया एव ।न हि मृदमना-श्रित्य घटादेः सत्त्वं स्थितिर्वा अस्ति ।अतः मृद्वत्सन्मूल-त्वात्प्रजानां सन् आयतनं यासां ताः सदायतनाः प्रजाः ।अन्ते च सत्प्रतिष्ठाः सदैव प्रतिष्ठा लयः समाप्तिः अवसानंपरिशेषः यासां ताः सत्प्रतिष्ठाः ॥
In plain words
So, having already shown his son the self's true nature -- the very root of the world -- through that earlier, unusual reading of the word 'he sleeps', Uddālaka now wants to prove the same point a second way: by following the chain of cause and effect, starting from food, all the way back to Being itself. Take the ordinary word 'hunger and thirst'. The wish to eat is 'hunger'; the wish to drink is 'thirst' -- know both of them, right down to their root, as nothing but Being. And when exactly does someone become 'hungry'? When the hard food he ate is broken down by the water he drank, turned liquid, turned into sap -- once that digesting is done, the appetite returns, and only then does the word 'hungry' really apply, and even then only in a borrowed sense. Because look closer: it's the water that does the work of carrying the food along, so 'hunger' is really water's name before it's ever a person's. Just as we call someone who leads cows a cowherd, someone who leads horses a horse-keeper, someone who leads men a king or a general -- in exactly that way, people call water itself 'hunger', the leader of what's been eaten. And once you see that, look at what water builds: this body. It has sprung up out of food the way a shoot springs from a banyan seed, and like any young shoot fed daily by handfuls of soil, it keeps growing, day after day, rooted entirely in food. But food itself -- does it just sit there as the final answer? No. Food arises and perishes exactly the way the body does, so food, too, is only a sprout, rooted in something further back. And so the teaching goes: 'Just as the body is a sprout rooted in food, dear one, so trace the sprout that food itself is, back to its root in water.' But water arises and perishes too -- it's a sprout as well -- so: 'By means of water, dear one, trace that sprout back further, to heat as its cause.' And heat arises and perishes too, so finally: 'By means of heat, dear one, trace the sprout all the way back to Being as its root -- one alone, without a second, the only reality there ultimately is.' Everything you see around you -- every name, every apparent change -- is nothing more than a way of talking, unreal, the way a snake seen on a rope in the dark is unreal, a trick ignorance plays on top of something real. That real thing is the root of this whole world. And so, dear one, every creature you can point to, whether it stands still or moves, is rooted in Being, caused by Being. And it isn't only where they came from -- right now, while they last, Being is still what holds them up, what they lean on. A clay pot has no existence and no standing apart from clay -- take the clay away and there's nothing left to call a pot. In exactly that way, Being is what every creature leans on for as long as it lasts. And when a creature finally comes apart, it isn't going nowhere -- it is coming home. Dissolving, finishing, ending, all that's left over: that, too, is Being, and Being alone.
Close to the Sanskrit
Thus, by way of the uncommon account of the word 'svapiti', having shown to his son that which is the individual self's true nature -- the root of the world -- he now speaks, wishing to show, by means also of the chain of cause and effect beginning with food, that the root of the world is Being itself. 'Hunger and thirst': the desire to eat is 'aśanā' -- by the desiderative affix, with elision of ya; the desire to drink is 'pipāsā'. These two are 'hunger and thirst'. Understand the true nature of these two, hunger and thirst, as Being -- that is the point. Where -- at what time -- does this name apply to a person? What is that time? [When he] is hungry, that is, wishes to eat. As for what causes that person's name to arise, he says: when the hard food eaten by that person is carried off by the waters drunk, being liquefied and converted into the state of chyle and so on, then the food eaten digests. And only then does his name 'hungry' apply, and this is a secondary usage. For every creature indeed wishes to eat once food is digested. In this connection, because of water's being the conveyor of what is eaten, the name 'hunger' [as leader-of-the-eaten] is well established, in this sense. Just as 'cow-leader' -- 'he who leads the cow' is called 'cow-leader', that is, cowherd; likewise 'he who leads horses' is 'horse-leader', called horse-keeper; 'leader of men' -- 'he who leads men' is a king or a general -- in the same way, then, ordinary people call water 'hunger', by elision of the visarga. This being so, this body, produced from the food eaten and carried by the waters into the state of chyle and so on, has sprung up, has arisen, like a sprout from a banyan seed. This effect, this sprout called 'body', being daily built up -- like the banyan-sprout and the rest, by lumps of earth -- is rooted in food; the body-sprout has been fully brought into being: that is the meaning. But as for the food that has been pointed out as the root of the body-sprout -- that too, since like the body it has both perishing and arising, is itself only a sprout that has arisen from some further root -- taking this into account, he says: just as the body-sprout is rooted in food, so too indeed, dear one, understand the waters as the root of food, the sprout that food is, since food too has become an effect; go on to arrive at that. Since water too has perishing and arising, it too has only the state of being a sprout: by means of water, dear one, the sprout that is an effect, seek out heat as the root, the cause. Since heat too has perishing and arising, it too has the state of being a sprout: by means of heat, dear one, the sprout, [seek] Being as the root -- one only, without a second, the ultimately real truth. That in which all this is a mere handle of speech, a modification, a name assigned, unreal -- like the class of imagined things such as a snake superimposed by ignorance on a rope -- that is this world's root. Therefore, dear one, all these creatures, characterized as stationary or moving, are rooted in Being, have Being as their cause. Not only are they rooted in Being alone -- even now, in the time of their continuance, they have Being alone as their abode, as their support. For a pot and the like has no existence or persistence without depending on clay. Therefore, since -- like clay -- Being is the root of creatures, those for whom Being is the abode are called 'having Being as abode'. And at the end, they are 'having Being as resting-place': dissolution, completion, cessation, remainder -- those for whom Being alone is that are called 'having Being as resting-place'.