We read in the B/ri/hadara/n/yaka, in the Maitreyi-brahma/n/a the following passage, ’Verily, a husband is not dear that you may love the husband, &c. &c.; verily, everything is not dear that you may love everything; but that you may love the Self therefore everything is dear.  Verily, the Self is to be seen, to be heard, to be perceived, to be marked, O Maitreyi!  When the Self has been seen, heard, perceived, and known, then all this is known’ (B/ri/.  Up.  IV, 5, 6).—­Here the doubt arises whether that which is represented as the object to be seen, to be heard, and so on, is the cognitional Self (the individual soul) or the highest Self.—­But whence the doubt?—­Because, we reply, the Self is, on the one hand, by the mention of dear things such as husband and so on, indicated as the enjoyer whence it appears that the passage refers to the individual soul; and because, on the other hand, the declaration that through the knowledge of the Self everything becomes known points to the highest Self.

The purvapakshin maintains that the passage refers to the individual soul, on account of the strength of the initial statement.  The text declares at the outset that all the objects of enjoyment found in this world, such as husband, wife, riches, and so on, are dear on account of the Self, and thereby gives us to understand that the enjoying (i.e. the individual) Self is meant; if thereupon it refers to the Self as the object of sight and so on, what other Self should it mean than the same individual Self?—­A subsequent passage also (viz.  ’Thus does this great Being, endless, unlimited, consisting of nothing but knowledge, rise from out of these elements, and vanish again after them.  When he has departed there is no more knowledge’), which describes how the great Being under discussion rises, as the Self of knowledge, from the elements, shows that the object of sight is no other than the cognitional Self, i.e. the individual soul.  The concluding clause finally, ‘How, O beloved, should he know the knower?’ shows, by means of the term ‘knower,’ which denotes an agent, that the individual soul is meant.  The declaration that through the cognition of the Self everything becomes known must therefore not be interpreted in the literal sense, but must be taken to mean that the world of objects of enjoyment is known through its relation to the enjoying soul.

To this we make the following reply.—­The passage makes a statement about the highest Self, on account of the connected meaning of the entire section.  If we consider the different passages in their mutual connexion, we find that they all refer to the highest Self.  After Maitreyi has heard from Yaj/n/avalkya that there is no hope of immortality by wealth, she expresses her desire of immortality in the words, ’What should I do with that by which I do not become immortal?  What my Lord knoweth tell that to me;’ and thereupon Yaj/n/avalkya expounds to her the knowledge of the Self.  Now