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Updated: April 30, 2025
In the mantra, 'him the gods worship as the light of lights, which precedes the mantra about the 'five-people, Brahman is spoken of as the light of lights, and this suggests the idea of certain lights the activity of which depends on Brahman.
And as we want to know how many such groups there are, the additional qualification 'five' intimates that there are five such groups; just as if it were said 'five five-bundles, i. e. five aggregates consisting of five bundles each. We thus understand that the 'five five-people' are twenty- five things, and as the mantra in which the term is met with refers to final release, we recognise the twenty-five categories known from the Sankhya-smriti which are here referred to as objects to be known by persons desirous of release.
The mantra leaves it undetermined what these lights are; but from what follows about the 'five-people, &c., we learn that what is meant are the senses which light up as it were their respective objects. 'Of mind' denotes mind, i. e. the so-called internal organ.
In the text of some, viz. the Kanvas, where food is not mentioned, the five-people are recognised to be the five senses, owing to the phrase 'of lights' which is met with in another complementary passage.
To this the Sutra replies that from the mention of the number twenty-five supposed to be implied in the expression 'the five five-people, it does not follow that the categories of the Sankhyas are meant. 'On account of the diversity, i.e. on account of the five-people further qualified by the number five being different from the categories of the Sankhyas.
But, an objection is raised, while the mantra 'in whom the five five- people, &c., is common to the Kanvas and the Madhyandinas, the complementary passage 'they who know the breath of breath, &c., in the text of the former makes no mention of food, and hence we have no reason to say that the 'five-people' in their text are the breath, eye, and so on. To this objection the next Sutra replies.
The Purvapakshin maintains the former view, on the ground that the word 'five-people, qualified by the word 'five, intimates the twenty-five categories of the Sankhyas.
'They who know the breath of breath, the eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, the food of food, the mind of mind, that the 'five-people' are the breath, and eye, and so on, all of which have their abode in Brahman.
What the text designates therefore is the Supreme Person who is the Universal Lord in whom all things abide such as he is described in the text quoted above, 'Therefore some call him the twenty-sixth, and others the twenty-seventh. The 'even' in the Sutra is meant to intimate that the 'five five-people' can in no way mean the twenty-five categories, since there is no pentad of groups consisting of five each.
The meaning of the clause about the 'five-people' therefore is that the senses called 'five-people' and the elements, represented by the Ether, have their basis in Brahman; and as thus all beings are declared to abide in Brahman, the five 'five-people' can in no way be the twenty-five categories assumed by the Sankhyas.
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