spot of the city of which it is the Lord, we remark that the term is more properly interpreted to mean ’the body in so far as it is the city of the highest Brahman;’ which interpretation enables us to take the term ‘Brahman’ in its primary sense[183].  The highest Brahman also is connected with the body, for the latter constitutes an abode for the perception of Brahman[184].  Other scriptural passages also express the same meaning, so, for instance, Pra.  Up.  V, 5, ’He sees the highest person dwelling in the city’ (purusha = puri/s/aya), &c., and B/ri/.  Up.  II, 5, 18, ’This person (purusha) is in all cities (bodies) the dweller within the city (puri/s/aya).’—­Or else (taking brahmapura to mean jivapura) we may understand the passage to teach that Brahman is, in the city of the individual soul, near (to the devout worshipper), just as Vish/n/u is near to us in the Salagrama-stone.—­Moreover, the text (VIII, 1, 6) at first declares the result of works to be perishable (’as here on earth whatever has been acquired by works perishes, so perishes whatever is acquired for the next world by good actions,’ &c.), and afterwards declares the imperishableness of the results flowing from a knowledge of the small ether, which forms the general subject of discussion (’those who depart from hence after having discovered the Self and those true desires, for them there is freedom in all worlds’).  From this again it is manifest that the small ether is the highest Self.—­We now turn to the statement made by the purvapakshin,’that the sacred text does not represent the small ether as that which is to be sought for and to be understood, because it is mentioned as a distinguishing attribute of something else,’ and reply as follows:  If the (small) ether were not that which is to be sought for and to be understood, the description of the nature of that ether, which is given in the passage (’as large as this ether is, so large is that ether within the heart’), would be devoid of purport.—­But—­the opponent might say—­that descriptive statement also has the purport of setting forth the nature of the thing abiding within (the ether); for the text after having raised an objection (in the passage, ’And if they should say to him:  Now with regard to that city of Brahman and the palace in it, i.e. the small lotus of the heart, and the small ether within the heart, what is there within it that deserves to be sought for or that is to be understood?’) declares, when replying to that objection, that heaven, earth, and so on, are contained within it (the ether), a declaration to which the comparison with the ether forms a mere introduction.—­Your reasoning, we reply, is faulty.  If it were admitted, it would follow that heaven, earth, &c., which are contained within the small ether, constitute the objects of search and enquiry.  But in that case the complementary passage would be out of place.  For the text carrying on, as the subject of discussion, the ether that is the abode of heaven, earth, &c.—­by means