deathless and the fearless, that is the Brahman.”  They went away pleased, but Prajapati thought, “There they go away, without having discovered, without having realized the self.”  Virocana came away with the conviction that the body was the self; but Indra did not return back to the gods, he was afraid and pestered with doubts and came back to Prajapati and said, “just as the self becomes decorated when the body is decorated, well-dressed when the body is well-dressed, well-cleaned when the body is well-cleaned, even so that image self will be blind when the body is blind, injured in one eye when the body is injured in one eye, and mutilated when the body is mutilated, and it perishes

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[Footnote 1:  Taitt.  II. 7.]

[Footnote 2:  Cha.  VIII. 7. 1.]

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when the body perishes, therefore I can see no good in this theory.”  Prajapati then gave him a higher instruction about the self, and said, “He who goes about enjoying dreams, he is the self, this is the deathless, the fearless, this is Brahman.”  Indra departed but was again disturbed with doubts, and was afraid and came back and said “that though the dream self does not become blind when the body is blind, or injured in one eye when the body is so injured and is not affected by its defects, and is not killed by its destruction, but yet it is as if it was overwhelmed, as if it suffered and as if it wept—­in this I see no good.”  Prajapati gave a still higher instruction:  “When a man, fast asleep, in total contentment, does not know any dreams, this is the self, this is the deathless, the fearless, this is Brahman.”  Indra departed but was again filled with doubts on the way, and returned again and said “the self in deep sleep does not know himself, that I am this, nor does he know any other existing objects.  He is destroyed and lost.  I see no good in this.”  And now Prajapati after having given a course of successively higher instructions as self as the body, as the self in dreams and as the self in deep dreamless sleep, and having found that the enquirer in each case could find out that this was not the ultimate truth about the self that he was seeking, ultimately gave him the ultimate and final instruction about the full truth about the self, and said “this body is the support of the deathless and the bodiless self.  The self as embodied is affected by pleasure and pain, the self when associated with the body cannot get rid of pleasure and pain, but pleasure and pain do not touch the bodiless self [Footnote ref 1].”