passage in which the bhuman is characterised.  ‘Where one sees nothing else?’ &c.—­As, the purvapakshin replies, in the state of deep sleep we observe a cessation of all activity, such as seeing, &c., on the part of the organs merged in the vital air, the vital air itself may be characterised by a passage such as, ’Where one sees nothing else.’  Similarly, another scriptural passage (Pra.  Up.  IV, 2; 3) describes at first (in the words, ’He does not hear, he does not see,’ &c.) the state of deep sleep as characterised by the cessation of the activity of all bodily organs, and then by declaring that in that state the vital air, with its five modifications, remains awake (’The fires of the pra/n/as are awake in that town’), shows the vital air to occupy the principal position in the state of deep sleep.—­That passage also, which speaks of the bliss of the bhuman (’The bhuman is bliss,’ Ch.  Up.  VII, 23), can be reconciled with our explanation, because Pra.  Up.  IV, 6 declares bliss to attach to the state of deep sleep (’Then that god sees no dreams and at that time that happiness arises in his body’).—­Again, the statement, ‘The bhuman is immortality’ (Ch.  Up.  VII, 24, 1), may likewise refer to the vital air; for another scriptural passage says, ‘Pra/n/a is immortality’ (Kau.  Up.  III, 2).—­But how can the view according to which the bhuman is the vital air be reconciled with the fact that in the beginning of the chapter the knowledge of the Self is represented as the general topic (’He who knows the Self overcomes grief,’ &c.)?—­By the Self there referred to, the purvapakshin replies, nothing else is meant but the vital air.  For the passage, ’The vital air is father, the vital air is mother, the vital air is brother, the vital air is sister, the vital air is teacher, the vital air is Brahma/n/a’ (Ch.  Up.  VII, 15, 1), represents the vital air as the Self of everything.  As, moreover, the passage, ’As the spokes of a wheel rest in the nave, so all this rests in pra/n/a,’ declares the pra/n/a to be the Self of all—­by means of a comparison with the spokes and the nave of a wheel—­the pra/n/a may be conceived under the form of bhuman, i.e. plenitude.—­Bhuman, therefore, means the vital air.

To this we make the following reply.—­Bhuman can mean the highest Self only, not the vital air.—­Why?—­’On account of information being given about it, subsequent to bliss.’  The word ‘bliss’ (samprasada) means the state of deep sleep, as may be concluded, firstly, from the etymology of the word (’In it he, i.e. man, is altogether pleased—­samprasidati’)—­and, secondly, from the fact of samprasada being mentioned in the B/ri/hadara/n/yaka together with the state of dream and the waking state.  And as in the state of deep sleep the vital air remains awake, the word ‘samprasada’ is employed in the Sutra to denote the vital air; so that the Sutra means, ’on account of information being given about the bhuman, subsequently to (the information given about) the