9. For he it is who sees, hears, smells, tastes, perceives, conceives, acts, he whose essence is knowledge , the person, and he dwells in the highest, indestructible Self,--

10. He who knows that indestructible being, obtains (what is) the highest and indestructible, he without a shadow, without a body, without colour, bright--,yes, O friend, he who knows it, becomes all-knowing, becomes all. On this there is this Sloka:

11. He, O friend, who knows that indestructible being wherein the true knower, the vital spirits (pranas), together with all the powers (deva), and the elements rest, he, being all-knowing, has penetrated all.'

Footnotes

^279:1 See note to verse 5.

^279:2 We ought to read agnaya iva.

^279:3 Pranayana, praniyate 'smad iti pranayano garhapatyo 'gnih.

^279:4 The comparison between the pranas and the fires or altars is not very clear. As to the fires or altars, there is the Garhapatya, placed in the South-west, the household fire, which is always kept burning, from which the fire is taken to the other altars. The Anvaharyapakana, commonly called the Dakshina fire, placed in the South, used chiefly for oblations to the forefathers. The Ahavaniya fire, placed in the East, and used for sacrifices to the gods.

^280:1 The name of the Hotri priest must be supplied. He is supposed to carry two oblations equally to the Ahavaniya, and in the same way the Vyana, combines the two breathings, the in and out breathings.

^280:2 The givatman under the guise of manas. The Sanskrit word is deva, god, used in the sense of an invisible power, but as a masculine. The commentator uses manodevah, p. 212, l. 5. I generally translate deva, if used in this sense, by faculty, but the context required a masculine. See verse 2.

^280:3 In the state of profound sleep or sushupti.

^281:1 Buddhi and the rest are the instruments of knowledge, but there is the knower, the person, in the Highest Self.