vital air.’  If the bhuman were the vital air itself, it would be a strange proceeding to make statements about the bhuman in addition to the statements about the vital air.  For in the preceding passages also we do not meet, for instance, with a statement about name subsequent to the previous statement about name (i.e. the text does not say ’name is more than name’), but after something has been said about name, a new statement is made about speech, which is something different from name (i.e. the text says, ’Speech is more than name’), and so on up to the statement about vital air, each subsequent statement referring to something other than the topic of the preceding one.  We therefore conclude that the bhuman also, the statement about which follows on the statement about the vital air, is something other than the vital air.  But—­it may be objected—­we meet here neither with a question, such as, ‘Is there something more than vital air?’ nor with an answer, such as, ‘That and that is more than vital air.’  How, then, can it be said that the information about the bhuman is given subsequently to the information about the vital air?—­Moreover, we see that the circumstance of being an ativadin, which is exclusively connected with the vital air, is referred to in the subsequent passage (viz.  ’But in reality he is an ativadin who makes a statement surpassing (the preceding statements) by means of the True’).  There is thus no information additional to the information about the vital air.—­To this objection we reply that it is impossible to maintain that the passage last quoted merely continues the discussion of the quality of being an ativadin, as connected with the knowledge of the vital air; since the clause, ‘He who makes a statement surpassing, &c. by means of the True,’ states a specification.—­But, the objector resumes, this very statement of a specification may be explained as referring to the vital air.  If you ask how, we refer you to an analogous case.  If somebody says, ’This Agnihotrin speaks the truth,’ the meaning is not that the quality of being an Agnihotrin depends on speaking the truth; that quality rather depends on the (regular performance of the) agnihotra only, and speaking the truth is mentioned merely as a special attribute of that special Agnihotrin.  So our passage also (’But in reality he is an ativadin who makes a statement, &c. by means of the True’) does not intimate that the quality of being an ativadin depends on speaking the truth, but merely expresses that speaking the truth is a special attribute of him who knows the vital air; while the quality of being an ativadin must be considered to depend on the knowledge of the vital air.—­This objection we rebut by the remark that it involves an abandonment of the direct meaning of the sacred text.  For from the text, as it stands, we understand that the quality of being an ativadin depends on speaking the truth; the sense being:  An ativadin is he who is an ativadin by means of the