By Ritambhara
The sixth chapter of the Chandogya Upanishad, part of the Sama Veda, records Uddalaka Aruni teaching his son Shvetaketu how the world came from one Being, sat. In the second section that Being wishes to become many and puts forth heat, tejas. Heat puts forth water, and water puts forth food. The Chandogya Upanishad rain verse closes that sequence and names the evidence for it.
t? ?pa aik?anta bahvya? sy?ma praj?yemah?ti t? annam as?janta
tasm?d yatra kva ca var?ati tad eva bh?yi??ham anna? bhavaty adbhya eva tad adhy ann?dya? j?yate (6.2.4)
“The waters reflected: may we be many, may we be born. They produced food. So wherever it rains, food is most plentiful there. Food for eating comes from water alone.”
What the verse claims
The verb aik?anta, from the root ?k?, “to see”, means the waters considered and resolved. Each element receives the same intention as its source. Bh?yi??ham is the superlative of bahu, “much”. The verse before it applies the same reasoning to heat: whenever a person grieves or sweats, water comes from heat. Shankara reads annam here as the earth element. He writes p?rthiva? hi annam, food is of the earth, and adds that food is an effect of water. For ann?dya, food fit to eat, he names rice, barley and similar grains.
The order of causes
The teaching makes each element depend on the one before it. In section 6.4 Uddalaka returns to the scheme and gives red to heat, white to water and black to food, so that every visible thing combines the three. The sequence runs in one direction. A change in heat passes into water, and a change in water passes into food.
The verse and a warming monsoon
Physics now measures the link the verse names. The IPCC’s 2021 assessment projected that daily extreme rainfall will intensify by about 7 per cent for each 1°C of global warming, because warmer air carries more water vapour. Kerala showed the result in a single month. Between 1 and 19 August 2018 the state received 758.6 mm of rain, 164 per cent above average, according to the Kerala Floods 2018 Joint Detailed Needs Assessment. Floods killed more than 400 people and displaced over a million.
The Chandogya places food at the end of a chain that begins with heat. Read on its own terms, the verse requires anyone who wants plentiful food to keep heat and water in their proper measure. Today that means cutting the heat people add to the air, since every added degree reaches the field as heavier and less dependable rain.
