in the colloquy of the vital airs (Pra.  Up.  II, 3), concerning speech and the other vital airs, ’Then pra/n/a (the chief vital air) as the best said to them:  Be not deceived; I alone dividing myself fivefold support this body and keep it.’  Those, again, who in the passage quoted above read ’this one (masc.), the body[132]’ must give the following explanation, Pra/n/a having laid hold of this one, viz. either the individual soul or the aggregate of the sense organs, makes the body rise up.  The individual soul as well as the chief vital air may justly be designated as the intelligent Self; for the former is of the nature of intelligence, and the latter (although non-intelligent in itself) is the abode of other pra/n/as, viz. the sense organs, which are the instruments of intelligence.  Moreover, if the word pra/n/a be taken to denote the individual soul as well as the chief vital air, the pra/n/a and the intelligent Self may be spoken of in two ways, either as being non-different on account of their mutual concomitance, or as being different on account of their (essentially different) individual character; and in these two different ways they are actually spoken of in the two following passages, ’What is pra/n/a that is praj/n/a, what is praj/n/a that is pra/n/a;’ and, ’For together do these two live in the body and together do they depart.’  If, on the other hand, pra/n/a denoted Brahman, what then could be different from what?  For these reasons pra/n/a does not denote Brahman, but either the individual soul or the chief vital air or both.

All this argumentation, we reply, is wrong, ’on account of the threefoldness of devout meditation.’  Your interpretation would involve the assumption of devout meditation of three different kinds, viz. on the individual soul, on the chief vital air, and on Brahman.  But it is inappropriate to assume that a single sentence should enjoin three kinds of devout meditation; and that all the passages about the pra/n/a really constitute one single sentence (one syntactical whole) appears from the beginning and the concluding part.  In the beginning we have the clause ‘Know me only,’ followed by ’I am pra/n/a, the intelligent Self, meditate on me as Life, as Immortality;’ and in the end we read, ’And that pra/n/a indeed is the intelligent Self, blessed, imperishable, immortal.’  The beginning and the concluding part are thus seen to be similar, and we therefore must conclude that they refer to one and the same matter.  Nor can the characteristic mark of Brahman be so turned as to be applied to something else; for the ten objects and the ten subjects (subjective powers)[133] cannot rest on anything but Brahman.  Moreover, pra/n/a must denote Brahman ’on account of (that meaning) being accepted,’ i.e. because in the case of other passages where characteristic marks of Brahman are mentioned the word pra/n/a is taken in the sense of ‘Brahman.’  And another reason for assuming the passage to refer to Brahman is that here