in the passage, ‘These are the five persons of Brahman’ (Ch.  Up.  III, 13, 6); and another passage runs, ’Breath is father, breath is mother,’ &c. (Ch.  Up.  VII, 15, 1).  And, owing to the force of composition, there is no objection to the compound being taken in its settled conventional meaning[238].—­But how can the conventional meaning be had recourse to, if there is no previous use of the word in that meaning?—­That may be done, we reply, just as in the case of udbhid and similar words[239].  We often infer that a word of unknown meaning refers to some known thing because it is used in connexion with the latter.  So, for instance, in the case of the following words:  ’He is to sacrifice with the udbhid; he cuts the yupa; he makes the vedi.’  Analogously we conclude that the term pa/nk/ajana/h/, which, from the grammatical rule quoted, is known to be a name, and which therefore demands a thing of which it is the name, denotes the breath, the eye, and so on, which are connected with it through their being mentioned in a complementary passage.—­Some commentators explain the word pa/nk/ajana/h/ to mean the Gods, the Fathers, the Gandharvas, the Asuras, and the Rakshas.  Others, again, think that the four castes together with the Nishadas are meant.  Again, some scriptural passage (Rig-veda Sa/m/h.  VIII, 53, 7) speaks of the tribe of ‘the five-people,’ meaning thereby the created beings in general; and this latter explanation also might be applied to the passage under discussion.  The teacher (the Sutrakara), on the other hand, aiming at showing that the passage does not refer to the twenty-five categories of the Sa@nkhyas, declares that on the ground of the complementary passage breath, &c. have to be understood.

Well, let it then be granted that the five-people mentioned in the Madhyandina-text are breath, &c. since that text mentions food also (and so makes up the number five).  But how shall we interpret the Ka/n/va-text which does not mention food (and thus altogether speaks of four things only)?—­To this question the next Sutra replies.

13.  In the case of (the text of) some (the Ka/n/vas) where food is not mentioned, (the number five is made full) by the light (mentioned in the preceding mantra).

The Ka/n/va-text, although not mentioning food, makes up the full number five, by the light mentioned in the mantra preceding that in which the five-people are spoken of.  That mantra describes the nature of Brahman by saying, ’Him the gods worship as the light of lights.’—­If it be asked how it is accounted for that the light mentioned in both texts equally is in one text to be employed for the explanation of the five-people, and not in the other text; we reply that the reason lies in the difference of the requirements.  As the Madhyandinas meet in one and the same mantra with breath and four other entities enabling them to interpret the term, ‘the five-people,’ they are in no need of the light mentioned in another mantra.  The Ka/n/vas, on the other hand, cannot do without the light.  The case is analogous to that of the Sho/d/a/s/in-cup, which, according to different passages, is either to be offered or not to be offered at the atiratra-sacrifice.