among the pra/n/as who consists of cognition’) does not aim at setting forth the character of the transmigrating Self, but rather, while merely referring to the nature of the transmigrating Self as something already known, aims at declaring its identity with the highest Brahman; for it is manifest that the immediately subsequent passage, ’as if thinking, as if moving’[227], aims at discarding the attributes of the transmigrating Self.  The concluding passage again is analogous to the initial one; for the words, ‘And that great unborn Self is he who,’ &c., mean:  We have shown that that same cognitional Self, which is observed among the pra/n/as, is the great unborn Self, i.e. the highest Lord—­He, again, who imagines that the passages intervening (between the two quoted) aim at setting forth the nature of the transmigrating Self by representing it in the waking state, and so on, is like a man who setting out towards the east, wants to set out at the same time towards the west.  For in representing the states of waking, and so on, the passage does not aim at describing the soul as subject to different states or transmigration, but rather as free from all particular conditions and transmigration.  This is evident from the circumstance that on Janaka’s question, which is repeated in every section, ‘Speak on for the sake of emancipation,’ Yaj/n/avalkya replies each time, ’By all that he is not affected, for that person is not attached to anything’ (B/ri/.  Up.  IV, 3, 14-16).  And later on he says (IV, 3, 22), ’He is not followed by good, not followed by evil, for he has then overcome all the sorrows of the heart.’  We have, therefore, to conclude that the chapter exclusively aims at setting forth the nature of the non-transmigrating Self.

43.  And on account of such words as Lord, &c.

That the chapter aims at setting forth the nature of the non-transmigrating Self, we have to conclude from that circumstance also that there occur in it terms such as Lord and so on, intimating the nature of the non-transmigrating Self, and others excluding the nature of the transmigrating Self.  To the first class belongs, for instance, ’He is the lord of all, the king of all things, the protector of all things.’  To the latter class belongs the passage, ’He does not become greater by good works, nor smaller by evil works.’—­From all which we conclude that the chapter refers to the non-transmigrating highest Lord.

Notes: 

[Footnote 164:  From passages of which nature we may infer that in the passage under discussion also the ‘abode’ is Brahman.]

[Footnote 165:  From which circumstance we may conclude that the passage under discussion also refers to Brahman.]

[Footnote 166:  Yat sarvam avidyaropita/m/ tat sarva/m/ paramarthato brahma na tu yad brahma tat sarvam ity artha/h/.  Bhamati.]

[Footnote 167:  So that the passage would have to be translated, ’That, viz. knowledge, &c. is the bridge of the Immortal.’]