From the Bhakti List Archives
Vidyasankar Sundaresan
• Sun Mar 16 1997 - 10:12:23 PST
On Fri, 14 Mar 1997, Mani Varadarajan wrote:
> Sriman Vidyasankar writes:
> > Many upanishads mention that the letter Ka stands for Brahman.
> > Ka also stands for AkASa among the pancabhUtas.
>
> This brought to mind the Chhandogya Upanishad vaakya which
> teaches this explicitly:
>
> kam brahmA, kham brahmA
>
> yad eva kham, tad eva kam
>
> kam is understood as bliss; kham means the AkASa, colloquially
> the sky
Yes, kham is indeed understood as the sky. That is why Garuda, and
in general any bird, is called Khaga (kham gacchatIti khaga:), by virtue
of which there is the name KhagavAhana.
Vidyasankar
