of it.’ &c.  How then, we ask, should this mantra, which evidently is quoted with reference to the Gayatri (metre) as described in the preceding clauses, all at once denote Brahman with its four quarters?  Since therefore the metre Gayatri is the subject-matter of the entire chapter, the term ‘Brahman’ which occurs in a subsequent passage (’the Brahman which has thus been described’) must also denote the metre.  This is analogous to a previous passage (Ch.  Up.  III, 11, 3, ’He who thus knows this Brahma-upanishad’), where the word Brahma-upanishad is explained to mean Veda-upanishad.  As therefore the preceding passage refers (not to Brahman, but) to the Gayatri metre, Brahman does not constitute the topic of the entire section.

This argumentation, we reply, proves nothing against our position.  ‘Because thus direction of the mind is declared,’ i.e. because the Brahma/n/a passage, ‘Gayatri indeed is all this,’ intimates that by means of the metre Gayatri the mind is to be directed on Brahman which is connected with that metre.  Of the metre Gayatri, which is nothing but a certain special combination of syllables, it could not possibly be said that it is the Self of everything.  We therefore have to understand the passage as declaring that Brahman, which, as the cause of the world, is connected with that product also whose name is Gayatri, is ’all this;’ in accordance with that other passage which directly says, ’All this indeed is Brahman’ (Kh.  Up.  III, 14, 1).  That the effect is in reality not different from the cause, we shall prove later on, under Sutra II, 1, 14.  Devout meditation on Brahman under the form of certain effects (of Brahman) is seen to be mentioned in other passages also, so, for instance, Ait.  Ar.  III, 2, 3, 12, ’For the Bahv/rik/as consider him in the great hymn, the Adhvaryus in the sacrificial fire, the Chandogas in the Mahavrata ceremony.’  Although, therefore, the previous passage speaks of the metre, Brahman is what is meant, and the same Brahman is again referred to in the passage about the light, whose purport it is to enjoin another form of devout meditation.

Another commentator[127] is of opinion that the term Gayatri (does not denote Brahman in so far as viewed under the form of Gayatri, but) directly denotes Brahman, on account of the equality of number; for just as the Gayatri metre has four feet consisting of six syllables each, so Brahman also has four feet, (i.e. quarters.) Similarly we see that in other passages also the names of metres are used to denote other things which resemble those metres in certain numerical relations; cp. for instance, Ch.  Up.  IV, 3, 8, where it is said at first, ’Now these five and the other five make ten and that is the K/ri/ta,’ and after that ‘these are again the Viraj which eats the food.’  If we adopt this interpretation, Brahman only is spoken of, and the metre is not referred to at all.  In any case Brahman is the subject with which the previous passage is concerned.