make her immortal.  Yajnavalkya proceeded to explain to her his doctrine of the Atman, the self or essence, the spirit present in man as well as in the universe.  “Not for the husband’s sake is the husband dear but for the sake of the Atman.  Not for the wife’s sake is the wife dear but for the sake of the Atman.  Not for their own sake are sons, wealth, Brahmans, warriors, worlds, gods, Vedas and all things dear, but for the sake of the Atman.  The Atman is to be seen, to be heard, to be perceived, to be marked:  by him who has seen and known the Atman all the universe is known....  He who looks for Brahmans, warriors, worlds, gods or Vedas anywhere but in the Atman, loses them all....”

“As all waters have their meeting place in the sea, all touch in the skin, all tastes in the tongue, all odours in the nose, all colours in the eye, all sounds in the ear, all percepts in the mind, all knowledge in the heart, all actions in the hands....As a lump of salt has no inside nor outside and is nothing but taste, so has this Atman neither inside nor outside and is nothing but knowledge.  Having risen from out these elements it (the human soul) vanishes with them.  When it has departed (after death) there is no more consciousness.”  Here Maitreyi professes herself bewildered but Yajnavalkya continues “I say nothing bewildering.  Verily, beloved, that Atman is imperishable and indestructible.  When there is as it were duality, then one sees the other, one tastes the other, one salutes the other, one hears the other, one touches the other, one knows the other.  But when the Atman only is all this, how should we see, taste, hear, touch or know another?  How can we know him by whose power we know all this?  That Atman is to be described by no, no (neti, neti).  He is incomprehensible for he cannot be comprehended, indestructible for he cannot be destroyed, unattached for he does not attach himself:  he knows no bonds, no suffering, no decay.  How, O beloved, can one know the knower?” And having so spoken, Yajnavalkya went away into the forest.  In another verse of the same work it is declared that “This great unborn Atman (or Self) undecaying, undying, immortal, fearless, is indeed Brahman.”

It is interesting that this doctrine, evidently regarded as the quintessence of Yajnavalkya’s knowledge, should be imparted to a woman.  It is not easy to translate.  Atman, of course, means self and is so rendered by Max Mueller in this passage, but it seems to me that this rendering jars on the English ear for it inevitably suggests the individual self and selfishness, whereas Atman means the universal spirit which is Self, because it is the highest (or only) Reality and Being, not definable in terms of anything else.  Nothing, says Yajnavalkya, has any value, meaning, or indeed reality except in relation to this Self[183].  The whole world including the Vedas and religion is an emanation from him.  The passage at which Maitreyi expresses her bewilderment