Text 27]
Prayers by the Demigods
161
सप्तत्वगष्टविटपो नवाक्षो दशच्छदी द्विखगो ह्यादिवृक्षः ॥२७॥
ekāyano 'sau dvi-phalas tri-mūlaś catū-rasaḥ pañca-vidhaḥ ṣaḍ-ātmā sapta-tvag aṣṭa-viṭapo navākṣo daśa-cchadī dvi-khago hy ādi-vṛkṣaḥ
eka-ayanaḥ —the body of an ordinary living being is fully dependent on the material elements;  asau —that;  dvi-phalaḥ —in this body we are subject to material happiness and distress, which result from  karma ;  tri-mūlaḥ —having three roots, the three modes of nature (goodness, passion and ignorance), upon which the body is created;  catuḥ-rasaḥ —four  rasas , or tastes;*  pañca-vidhaḥ —consisting of five senses for acquiring knowledge (the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and touch);  ṣaṭ-ātmā —six circumstances (lamentation, illusion, old age, death, hunger and thirst);  sapta-tvak —having seven coverings (skin, blood, muscle, fat, bone, marrow and semen);  aṣṭa-viṭapaḥ —eight branches (the five gross elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether—and also the mind, intelligence and ego);  nava-akṣaḥ —nine holes;  daśa-chḍdī —ten kinds of life air, resembling the leaves of a tree;  dvi-khagaḥ —two birds (the individual soul and the Supersoul);  hi —indeed;  ādi-vṛkṣaḥ —this is the original tree or construction of the material body, whether individual or universal.
TRANSLATION
The body [the total body and the individual body are of the same composition] may figuratively be called “the original tree.” From this tree, which fully depends on the ground of material nature, come two kinds of fruit—the enjoyment of happiness and the suffering of distress. The cause of the tree, forming its three roots, is association with the three modes of material nature—goodness,
*As the root of a tree extracts water ( rasa ) from the earth, the body tastes  dharma ,  artha ,  kāma  and  mokṣa —religion, economic development, sense gratification and liberation. These are four kinds of  rasa , or taste.