Note (return) — SA@NKARA'S INTRODUCTION (continued 2)

The pûrvapakshin maintains that the bhûman is the vital air, since there is found no further series of questions and answers as to what is more. For while we meet with a series of questions and answers (such as, 'Sir, is there something which is more than a name?'—'Speech is more than name.'—'Is there something which is more than speech?'—'Mind is more than speech'), which extends from name up to vital air, we do not meet with a similar question and answer as to what might be more than vital air (such as, 'Is there something which is more than vital air?'—'Such and such a thing is more than vital air'). The text rather at first declares at length (in the passage, 'The vital air is more than hope,' &c.) that the vital air is more than all the members of the series from name up to hope; it then acknowledges him who knows the vital air to be an ativâdin, i.e. one who makes a statement surpassing the preceding statements (in the passage, 'Thou art an ativâdin. He may say I am an ativâdin; he need not deny it'); and it thereupon (in the passage, 'But he in reality is an ativâdin who declares something beyond by means of the True'171),—not leaving off, but rather continuing to refer to the quality of an ativâdin which is founded on the vital air,—proceeds, by means of the series beginning with the True, to lead over to the bhûman; so that we conclude the meaning to be that the vital air is the bhûman.—But, if the bhûman is interpreted to mean the vital air, how have we to explain the passage in which the bhûman is characterised. 'Where one sees nothing else?' &c.—As, the pûrvapakshin replies, in the state of deep sleep we observe a cessation of all activity, such as seeing, &c., on the part of the organs merged in the vital air, the vital air itself may be characterised by a passage such as, 'Where one sees nothing else.' Similarly, another scriptural passage (Pra. Up. IV, 2; 3) describes at first (in the words, 'He does not hear, he does not see,' &c.) the state of deep sleep as characterised by the cessation of the activity of all bodily organs, and then by declaring that in that state the vital air, with its five modifications, remains awake ('The fires of the prânas are awake in that town'), shows the vital air to occupy the principal position in the state of deep sleep.—That passage also, which speaks of the bliss of the bhûman ('The bhûman is bliss,' Ch. Up. VII, 23), can be reconciled with our explanation, because Pra. Up. IV, 6 declares bliss to attach to the state of deep sleep ('Then that god sees no dreams and at that time that happiness arises in his body').—Again, the statement, 'The bhûman is immortality' (Ch. Up. VII, 24, 1), may likewise refer to the vital air; for another scriptural passage says, 'prâna is immortality' (Kau. Up. III, 2).—But how can the view according to which the bhûman is the vital air be reconciled with the fact that in the beginning of the chapter the knowledge of the Self is represented as the general topic ('He who knows the Self overcomes grief,' &c.)?—By the Self there referred to, the pûrvapakshin replies, nothing else is meant but the vital air. For the passage, 'The vital air is father, the vital air is mother, the vital air is brother, the vital air is sister, the vital air is teacher, the vital air is brâhmana' (Ch. Up. VII, 15, 1), represents the vital air as the Self of everything. As, moreover, the passage, 'As the spokes of a wheel rest in the nave, so all this rests in prâna,' declares the prâna to be the Self of all—by means of a comparison with the spokes and the nave of a wheel—the prâna may be conceived under the form of bhûman, i.e. plenitude.—Bhûman, therefore, means the vital air.