The question now arises whether the Self called bhûman is the individual Self or the highest Self.--The Pûrvapakshin maintains the former view. For, he says, to Narada who had approached Sanatkumâra with the desire to be instructed about the Self, a series of beings, beginning with 'name' and ending with 'breath,' are enumerated as objects of devout meditation; Nârada asks each time whether there be anything greater than name, and so on, and each time receives an affirmative reply ('speech is greater than name,' &c.); when, however, the series has advanced as far as Breath, there is no such question and reply. This shows that the instruction about the Self terminates with Breath, and hence we conclude that breath in this place means the individual soul which is associated with breath, not a mere modification of air. Also the clauses 'Breath is father, breath is mother,' &c. (VII, 15, 1), show that breath here is something intelligent. And this is further proved by the clause 'Slayer of thy father, slayer of thy mother,' &c. (VII, 15, 2; 3), which declares that he who offends a father, a mother, &c., as long as there is breath in them, really hurts them, and therefore deserves reproach; while no blame attaches to him who offers even the grossest violence to them after their breath has departed. For a conscious being only is capable of being hurt, and hence the word 'breath' here denotes such a being only. Moreover, as it is observed that also in the case of such living beings as have no vital breath (viz. plants), suffering results, or does not result, according as injury is inflicted or not, we must for this reason also decide that the breath spoken of in the text as something susceptible of injury is the individual soul. It consequently would be an error to suppose, on the ground of the comparison of Prâna to the nave of a wheel in which the spokes are set, that Prâna here denotes the highest Self; for the highest Self is incapable of being injured. That comparison, on the other hand, is quite in its place, if we understand by Prâna the individual soul, for the whole aggregate of non-sentient matter which stands to the individual soul in the relation of object or instrument of enjoyment, has an existence dependent on the individual soul. And this soul, there called Prâna, is what the text later on calls Bhûman; for as there is no question and reply as to something greater than Prâna, Prâna continues, without break, to be the subject-matter up to the mention of bhûman. The paragraphs intervening between the section on Prâna (VII, 15) and the section on the bhûman (VII, 23 ff.) are to be understood as follows. The Prâna section closes with the remark that he who fully knows Prâna is an ativâdin, i.e. one who makes a final supreme declaration. In the next sentence then, 'But this one in truth is an ativâdin who makes a supreme statement by means of the True,' the clause 'But this one is an ativâdin' refers back to