avidyâ, which the text begins by presenting as an object to be attained, is thereupon declared to be the Self consisting of bliss. In order to lead up to this--just as a man points out to another the moon by first pointing out the branch of a tree near which the moon is to be seen--the text at first refers to the body ('Man consists of food'); next to the vital breath with its five modifications which is within the body and supports it; then to the manas within the vital breath; then to the buddhi within the manas--'the Self consisting of breath'; 'the Self consisting of mind' (manas); 'the Self consisting of understanding' (vijñâna). Having thus gradually led up to the jîva, the text finally points out the latter, which is the innermost of all ('Different from that is the inner Self which consists of bliss'), and thus completes the series of Selfs one inside the other. We hence conclude that the Self consisting of bliss is that same jîva-self which was at the outset pointed out as the Brahman to be attained.--But the clause immediately following, 'Brahman is the tail, the support (of the Self of bliss'), indicates that Brahman is something different from the Self of bliss!-- By no means (the Pûrvapakshin rejoins). Brahman is, owing to its different characteristics, there compared to an animal body, and head, wings, and tail are ascribed to it, just as in a preceding clause the body consisting of food had also been imagined as having head, wings, and tail--these members not being something different from the body, but the body itself. Joy, satisfaction, great satisfaction, bliss, are imagined as the members, non-different from it, of Brahman consisting of bliss, and of them all the unmixed bliss-constituted Brahman is said to be the tail or support. If Brahman were something different from the Self consisting of bliss, the text would have continued, 'Different from this Self consisting of bliss is the other inner Self--Brahman.' But there is no such continuation. The connexion of the different clauses stands as follows: After Brahman has been introduced as the topic of the section ('He who knows Brahman attains the Highest'), and defined as different in nature from everything else ('The True, knowledge'), the text designates it by the term 'Self,' &c. ('From that Self sprang ether'), and then, in order to make it clear that Brahman is the innermost Self of all, enumerates the pranamaya and so on--designating them in succession as more and more inward Selfs--, and finally leads up to the ânandamaya as the innermost Self('Different from this, &c., is the Self consisting of bliss'). From all which it appears that the term 'Self' up to the end denotes the Brahman mentioned at the beginning.-- But, in immediate continuation of the clause, 'Brahman is the tail, the support,' the text exhibits the following sloka: 'Non-existing becomes he who views Brahman as non-existing; who knows Brahman as existing, him