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The Vajasaneyins, in the chapter recording the questions asked by Gargi, read as follows: 'He said, O Gargi, the Brahmanas call that the Imperishable. It is neither coarse nor fine, neither short nor long, it is not red, not fluid, it is without a shadow, &c. Up. A doubt here arises whether that Imperishable be the Pradhana, or the individual soul, or the highest Self.
The Vajasaneyins, of the Kanwa as well as the Madhyandina branch, have the following text: 'He who dwelling in the earth is within the earth, whom the earth does not know, whose body the earth is, who rules the earth within, he is thy Self, the ruler within, the Immortal. The text thereupon extends this teaching as to a being that dwells in things, is within them, is not known by them, has them for its body and rules them; in the first place to all divine beings, viz. water, fire, sky, air, sun, the regions, moon, stars, ether, darkness, light; and next to all material beings, viz. breath, speech, eye, ear, mind, skin, knowledge, seed closing each section with the words, 'He is thy Self, the ruler within, the Immortal. The Madhyandinas, however, have three additional sections, viz.
In the same way the Vajasaneyins declare that Vaisvanara abides within man, viz. in the passage 'He who knows this Agni Vaisvanara shaped like a man abiding within man. As thus Vaisvanara appears in co-ordination with the word 'Agni, is represented as the triad of sacred fires, is said to be the abode of the oblation to Breath, and to abide within man, he must be viewed as the intestinal fire, and it is therefore not true that he can be identified with the highest Self only.
'Prajapati is the year; his Self is that Mahavrata. The Vajasaneyins have a Brahmana referring to the Pravargya, 'The gods sat down for a sattra-celebration. With reference to all this a doubt arises whether these mantras and the sacrificial works referred to in the Brahmana texts form parts of the meditations enjoined in the Upanishads or not.
And this difference of leading subject-matter implies difference of matter enjoined, and this again difference of the character of meditation, and hence there is no unity of vidyas. Nor does there arise, on this latter account, a contradiction between the later and the earlier part of the story of the Vajasaneyins.
Vaisvanara cannot be ascertained to be the highest Self, because, on the account of the text and of the abiding within, we can understand by the Vaisvanara in our text the intestinal fire also. The text to which we refer occurs in the Vaisvanara-vidya of the Vajasaneyins, 'This one is the Agni Vaisvanara, where the two words 'Agni' and 'Vaisvanara' are exhibited in co-ordination. Up.
Moreover some, viz. the Vajasaneyins in this same colloquy of Balaki and Ajatasatru as recorded in their text, clearly distinguish from the vijnana-maya, i.e. the individual soul in the state of deep sleep, the highest Self which then is the abode of the individual soul. 'Where was then the person, consisting of intelligence, and from whence did he thus come back? Up.
Hence calmness of mind and the rest are to be aimed at and practised by householders also. Here terminates the adhikarana of 'calmness' and so on. And there is permission of all food in the case of danger of life; on account of this being seen. In the meditation on prana, according to the Vajasaneyins and the Chandogas, there is a statement as to all food being allowed to him who knows the prana.
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