all of which depend on personal existence and can in no way belong to Brahman, ’I slew the three-headed son of Tvash/tri/; I delivered the Arunmukhas, the devotees, to the wolves,’ and so on.  Indra may be called pra/n/a on account of his strength.  Scripture says, ‘Strength indeed is pra/n/a,’ and Indra is known as the god of strength; and of any deed of strength people say, ‘It is Indra’s work.’  The personal Self of a deity may, moreover, be called an intelligent Self; for the gods, people say, possess unobstructed knowledge.  It thus being a settled matter that some passages convey information about the personal Self of some deity, the other passages also—­as, for instance, the one about what is most beneficial for man—­must be interpreted as well as they may with reference to the same deity.  Hence pra/n/a does not denote Brahman.

This objection we refute by the remark that in that chapter there are found a multitude of references to the interior Self.  For the passage, ‘As long as pra/n/a dwells in this body so long surely there is life,’ declares that that pra/n/a only which is the intelligent interior Self—­and not some particular outward deity—­has power to bestow and to take back life.  And where the text speaks of the eminence of the pra/n/as as founded on the existence of the pra/n/a, it shows that that pra/n/a is meant which has reference to the Self and is the abode of the sense-organs.[129]

Of the same tendency is the passage, ’Pra/n/a, the intelligent Self, alone having laid hold of this body makes it rise up;’ and the passage (which occurs in the passus, ’Let no man try to find out what speech is,’ &c.), ’For as in a car the circumference of the wheel is set on the spokes and the spokes on the nave, thus are these objects set on the subjects (the senses) and the subjects on the pra/n/a.  And that pra/n/a indeed is the Self of pra/n/a, blessed, imperishable, immortal.’  So also the following passage which, referring to this interior Self, forming as it were the centre of the peripherical interaction of the objects and senses, sums up as follows, ‘He is my Self, thus let it be known;’ a summing up which is appropriate only if pra/n/a is meant to denote not some outward existence, but the interior Self.  And another scriptural passage declares ’this Self is Brahman, omniscient’[130] (B/ri/.  Up.  II, 5, 19).  We therefore arrive at the conclusion that, on account of the multitude of references to the interior Self, the chapter contains information regarding Brahman, not regarding the Self of some deity.—­How then can the circumstance of the speaker (Indra) referring to himself be explained?

30.  The declaration (made by Indra about himself, viz. that he is one with Brahman) (is possible) through intuition vouched for by Scripture, as in the case of Vamadeva.

The individual divine Self called Indra perceiving by means of rishi-like intuition[131]—­the existence of which is vouched for by Scripture—­its own Self to be identical with the supreme Self, instructs Pratardana (about the highest Self) by means of the words ’Know me only.’