to the highest Lord. Hence the doubt arises which meaning of the term is to be accepted and which to be set aside. Which, then, is the alternative to be embraced?--Vai/s/vanara, the purvapakshin maintains, is the gastric fire, because we meet, in some passages, with the term used in that special sense; so, for instance (B/ri/. Up. V, 9), 'Agni Vai/s/vanara is the fire within man by which the food that is eaten is cooked.'--Or else the term may denote fire in general, as we see it used in that sense also; so, for instance (/Ri/g-veda Sa/m/h. X, 88, 12), 'For the whole world the gods have made the Agni Vai/s/vanara a sign of the days.' Or, in the third place, the word may denote that divinity whose body is fire. For passages in which the term has that sense are likewise met with; compare, for instance, /Ri/g-veda Sa/m/h. I, 98, 1, 'May we be in the favour of Vai/s/vanara; for he is the king of the beings, giving pleasure, of ready grace;' this and similar passages properly applying to a divinity endowed with power and similar qualities. Perhaps it will be urged against the preceding explanations, that, as the word Vai/s/vanara is used in co-ordination with the term 'Self,' and as the term 'Self' alone is used in the introductory passage ('What is our Self, what is Brahman?'), Vai/s/vanara has to be understood in a modified sense, so as to be in harmony with the term Self. Well, then, the purvapakshin rejoins, let us suppose that Vai/s/vanara is the embodied Self which, as being an enjoyer, is in close vicinity to the Vai/s/vanara fire,[154] (i.e. the fire within the body,) and with which the qualification expressed by the term, 'Measured by a span,' well agrees, since it is restricted by its limiting condition (viz. the body and so on).--In any case it is evident that the term Vai/s/vanara does not denote the highest Lord.