’Do you yourself choose that boon for me which you deem most beneficial for a man.’  Now, as later on pra/n/a is declared to be what is most beneficial for man, what should pra/n/a denote but the highest Self?  For apart from the cognition of that Self a man cannot possibly attain what is most beneficial for him, as many scriptural passages declare.  Compare, for instance, Sve.  Up.  III, 8, ‘A man who knows him passes over death; there is no other path to go.’  Again, the further passage, ’He who knows me thus by no deed of his is his life harmed, not by theft, not by bhru/n/ahatya’ (III, 1), has a meaning only if Brahman is supposed to be the object of knowledge.  For, that subsequently to the cognition of Brahman all works and their effects entirely cease, is well known from scriptural passages, such as the following, ’All works perish when he has been beheld who is the higher and the lower’ (Mu.  Up.  II, 2, 8).  Moreover, pra/n/a can be identified with the intelligent Self only if it is Brahman.  For the air which is non-intelligent can clearly not be the intelligent Self.  Those characteristic marks, again, which are mentioned in the concluding passage (viz. those intimated by the words ‘bliss,’ ‘imperishable,’ ‘immortal’) can, if taken in their full sense, not be reconciled with any being except Brahman.  There are, moreover, the following passages, ’He does not increase by a good action, nor decrease by a bad action.  For he makes him whom he wishes to lead up from these worlds do a good deed; and the same makes him whom he wishes to lead down from these worlds do a bad deed;’ and, ’He is the guardian of the world, he is the king of the world, he is the Lord of the world’ (Kau.  Up.  III, 8).  All this can be properly understood only if the highest Brahman is acknowledged to be the subject-matter of the whole chapter, not if the vital air is substituted in its place.  Hence the word pra/n/a denotes Brahman.

29.  If it be said that (Brahman is) not (denoted) on account of the speaker denoting himself; (we reply that this objection is not valid) because there is in that (chapter) a multitude of references to the interior Self.

An objection is raised against the assertion that pra/n/a denotes Brahman.  The word pra/n/a, it is said, does not denote the highest Brahman, because the speaker designates himself.  The speaker, who is a certain powerful god called Indra, at first says, in order to reveal himself to Pratardana, ‘Know me only,’ and later on, ’I am pra/n/a, the intelligent Self.’  How, it is asked, can the pra/n/a, which this latter passage, expressive of personality as it is, represents as the Self of the speaker, be Brahman to which, as we know from Scripture, the attribute of being a speaker cannot be ascribed; compare, for instance, B/ri/.  Up.  III, 8, 8, ‘It is without speech, without mind.’  Further on, also, the speaker, i.e.  Indra, glorifies himself by enumerating a number of attributes,