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FOOTNOTE TO “DISCRIMINATION OF SPIRIT AND NOT-SPIRIT”

[The Theosophist, Vol. V, No. 3(51), December, 1883, pp. 72-74]

[Mohini M. Chatterji, F.T.S., translates from the original Sanskrit Śamkarâchârya’s celebrated Synopsis of Vedântism, entitled Âtmânâtma-Viveka. The text contains the following passage, in question-and-answer form: “Q. What is vach?—A. That which transcends speech, in which speech resides, and which is located in eight different centres and has the power of speech.” To this H. P. B. appends the following footnote:]

The secret commentaries say seven; for it does not separate the lips into the “upper” and “nether” lips. And, it adds to the seven centres the seven passages in the head connected with, and affected by, vach; namely—the mouth, the two eyes, the two nostrils and the two ears. “The left ear, eye and nostril being the messengers of the right side of the head; the right ear, eye and nostril—those of the left side.” Now this is purely scientific. The latest discoveries and conclusions of modern physiology have shown that the power or the faculty of human speech is located in the third frontal cavity of the left hemisphere of the

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brain. On the other hand, it is a well known fact that the nerve tissues inter-cross each other (decussate) in the brain in such a way that the motions of our left extremities are governed by the right hemisphere, while the motions of our right-hand limbs are subject to the left hemisphere of the brain.

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