Note (return) — SA@NKARA'S INTRODUCTION

All this argumentation, we reply, is wrong, 'on account of the threefoldness of devout meditation.' Your interpretation would involve the assumption of devout meditation of three different kinds, viz. on the individual soul, on the chief vital air, and on Brahman. But it is inappropriate to assume that a single sentence should enjoin three kinds of devout meditation; and that all the passages about the prâna really constitute one single sentence (one syntactical whole) appears from the beginning and the concluding part. In the beginning we have the clause 'Know me only,' followed by 'I am prâna, the intelligent Self, meditate on me as Life, as Immortality;' and in the end we read, 'And that prâna indeed is the intelligent Self, blessed, imperishable, immortal.' The beginning and the concluding part are thus seen to be similar, and we therefore must conclude that they refer to one and the same matter. Nor can the characteristic mark of Brahman be so turned as to be applied to something else; for the ten objects and the ten subjects (subjective powers)133 cannot rest on anything but Brahman. Moreover, prâna must denote Brahman 'on account of (that meaning) being accepted,' i.e. because in the case of other passages where characteristic marks of Brahman are mentioned the word prâna is taken in the sense of 'Brahman.' And another reason for assuming the passage to refer to Brahman is that here also, i.e. in the passage itself there is 'connexion' with characteristic marks of Brahman, as, for instance, the reference to what is most beneficial for man. The assertion that the passage, 'Having laid hold of this body it makes it rise up,' contains a characteristic mark of the chief vital air, is untrue; for as the function of the vital air also ultimately rests on Brahman it can figuratively be ascribed to the latter. So Scripture also declares, 'No mortal lives by the breath that goes up and by the breath that goes down. We live by another in whom these two repose' (Ka. Up. II, 5, 5). Nor does the indication of the individual soul which you allege to occur in the passage, 'Let no man try to find out what speech is, let him know the speaker,' preclude the view of prâna denoting Brahman. For, as the passages, 'I am Brahman,' 'That art thou,' and others, prove, there is in reality no such thing as an individual soul absolutely different from Brahman, but Brahman, in so far as it differentiates itself through the mind (buddhi) and other limiting conditions, is called individual soul, agent, enjoyer. Such passages therefore as the one alluded to, (viz. 'let no man try to find out what speech is, let him know the speaker,') which, by setting aside all the differences due to limiting conditions, aim at directing the mind on the internal Self and thus showing that the individual soul is one with Brahman, are by no means out of place. That the Self which is active in speaking and the like is Brahman appears from another scriptural passage also, viz. Ke. Up. I, 5, 'That which is not expressed by speech and by which speech is expressed that alone know as Brahman, not that which people here adore.' The remark that the statement about the difference of prâna and prajñâ (contained in the passage, 'Together they dwell in this body, together they depart') does not agree with that interpretation according to which prâna is Brahman, is without force; for the mind and the vital air which are the respective abodes of the two powers of cognition and action, and constitute the limiting conditions of the internal Self may be spoken of as different. The internal Self, on the other hand, which is limited by those two adjuncts, is in itself non-differentiated, so that the two may be identified, as is done in the passage 'prâna is prajñâ.'