Knowing the geographical importance of the Kanva rescension, it would be good to delve a bit further into that shakha.
What the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa, and the Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad have to say about kāya?
“This ritual done now is that which the gods did then, at inception.”
Satapatha Brahmana
THE COSMIC MAN:
Late Vedic depicts the creation of the world (cosmos) as the sacrifice of an anthropomorphous being.
The dismembered body constituted the ordered cosmos.
This man is Prajāpati, or Ka, in the Brāhmaṇas. The early Vedic disunited: Puruṣa, becomes the reunited to be: Prajāpati.
Puruṣa being the disunification (विद्रु vidru ) - Prajāpati being the reunification (संभू saṃbhū).
In the Brāhmaṇas, the primordial sacrifice of Prajapati is duplicated through the sacrificer’s own executions; through symbolic identifications and rituals. Each major sacrifice is the reenactment of the prototypal sacrifice.
In the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, the word of the dead enters the fire (agni); the breath into the air (vata); the eye into the sun (Aditya); the mind into the moon (candra); the ear into the quarters (dis). The dead person reunites with Ka, that is the teleological Prājapati.
Prajāpati (Ka) is also the creator. He propagates progeny. It is not Puruṣa, the “Man,” anymore. It is Prājapati, the “Lord of Creatures.”
The cosmos is mutually related to the body of the cosmic man. The configuration of the cosmos is that of a man.
Prajapati presents the epitome of a man. A man as a whole.
Man and cosmos are likened on both the “outer” plane of existence (physical body - cosmos’ spheres) and the “inner” plane of existence (mind and senses - animate components of the cosmos).
The mortal and the immortal.
“At inception, Prajapati was both mortal and immortal; his vital air (prana) was immortal and his body (sarira) was mortal.”
After his creation, Prājapati’s prana left sarira - Prājapati was cut off from the cosmos - and Prājapati (Ka,) became the typical example of a man.
The rituals in BU are just the way to recover the original state of unity.
The mind has a special place in that construct. It partakes in all physical experience - however it has the faculty to experience the physical experience independently.
The chief priest, for instance, partakes plainly to the sacrifice; yet doing nothing. The physical part being done by the lower priests. “Thinking” the sacrifice done by others is sacrificing by itself; at a higher level.
The higher priest gains an “unlimited” world; whereas the other priests win only one world each.
Note that the Brahmanic representation of Prajapati is such, that the upper half of the body is immortal, and the lower half mortal.
This also appears in the Shulba sutra of Kātyāyana - (and also in the Mahābhārata). The word kāya (as body,) is well defined in the latter two.
Kāya also means: “relating or devoted to the god Ka”. God or man, at this point?
How does Ka, the dismembered anthropomorphous being, appear in that Brāhmaṇa - and how might this concept be attached to the Buddhist concept of body?
Satapatha Brāhmaṇa:
2:5:2:13 Then follows a cake on one potsherd for Ka (Prajāpati); for by that cake on one potsherd to Ka Prajāpati indeed bestowed happiness (ka) on the creatures, and so does he (the sacrificer) now bestow happiness on the creatures by that one-cup cake: this is why there is a cake on one potsherd for Ka. Atha kāya ekakapālaḥ puroḍāśo bhavati | kaṃ vai prajāpatiḥ prajābhyaḥ kāyenaikakapālena puroḍāśenākuruta kamvevaiṣa etatprajābhyaḥ kāyenaikakapālena puroḍāśena kurute tasmātkāya ekakapālaḥ puroḍāśo bhavati.13.5.3.[2]
kāyasya vapāyāṃ hutāyām tadanvitarā juhuyuriti ha smāha inānyathādevatam
prīṇātīti śailāliḥ prajāpatirvai kaḥ prajāpatimu vā anu sarve
devāstadevainānyathādevatam prīṇātīti
13:5:3:33. ‘When the omentum of the (victim) sacred to Ka has been offered, they should thereupon offer the others,’ said Sailāli; ‘for, doubtless, Ka is Prajāpati, and behind Prajāpati are all the gods: it is in this way he gratifies them deity after deity.’
The Pure Self pervades all. It is bright and is not bound by a body. There are no wounds in it; no veins run in it. It is pure. Sin cannot come near it. It is a seer. It knows all. It is above all and is self-begotten. This Principle duly allots to the eternal creators their various duties.
Sa paryagācchukramakāyamavraṇamasnāviraṃ śuddhamapāpaviddham kavirmanīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūryāthātathyato’rthān vyadadhācchāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ
Good day.
Suci
(It’s shusi, not sushi).