In this passage we notice that fire again stands in the closest relation to speech. Speech itself is called a “light,” which, in its turn, is reduced to the “light” of the Atman, the creating psychic force, the libido. Thus the Hindoo metapsychology conceives speech and fire as emanations of the inner light from which we know that it is libido. Speech and fire are its forms of manifestation, the first human arts, which have resulted from its transformation. This common psychologic origin seems also to be indicated by certain results of philology. The Indo-Germanic root _bhâ_ designates the idea of “to lighten, to shine.” This root is found in Greek, φάω, φαίνω, φάος[322]; in old Icelandic _bán_ = white, in New High German _bohnen_ = to make shining. The same root _bhâ_ also designates “to speak”; it is found in Sanskrit _bhan_ = to speak, Armenian _ban_ = word, in New High German _bann_ = to banish, Greek φᾱ-μί, ἔφαν, φấτις.[323] Latin _fâ-ri_, _fânum_.
The root _bhelso_, with the meanings “to ring, to bark,” is found in Sanskrit _bhas_ = to bark and _bhâs_ = to talk, to speak; Lithuanian _balsas_ = voice, tone. Really _bhel-sô_ = to be bright or luminous. Compare Greek φάλος = bright, Lithuanian _bálti_ = to become white, Middle High German _blasz_ = pale.
The root _lâ_, with the meaning of “to make sound, to bark,” is found in Sanskrit _las_, _lásati_ = to resound; and _las_, _lásati_ = to radiate, to shine.
The related root _lesô_, with the meaning “desire,” is also found in Sanskrit _las_, _lásati_ = to play; _lash_, _láshati_ = to desire. Greek λάσταυρος = lustful, Gothic _lustus_, New High German _Lust_, Latin _lascivus_.
A further related root, _lásô_ = to shine, to radiate, is found in _las_, _lásati_ = to radiate, to shine.
This group unites, as is evident, the meanings of “to desire, to play, to radiate, and to sound.” A similar archaic confluence of meanings in the primal libido symbolism (as we are perhaps justified in calling it) is found in that class of Egyptian words which are derived from the closely related roots _ben_ and _bel_ and the reduplication _benben_ and _belbel_. The original significance of these roots is “to burst forth, to emerge, to extrude, to well out,” with the associated idea of bubbling, boiling and roundness. _Belbel_, accompanied by the sign of the obelisk, of originally phallic nature, means source of light. The obelisk itself had besides the names of _techenu_ and _men_ also the name _benben_, more rarely _berber_ and _belbel_.[324] The libido symbolism makes clear this connection, it seems to me.