/ani,
VI, 4, 158. Hence there is felt the want of a specification showing what
constitutes the Self of that muchness. Here there presents itself at
first the approximate passage, 'The vital air is more than hope' (Ch.
Up. VII, 15, 1), from which we may conclude that the vital air is
bhuman.--On the other hand, we meet at the beginning of the chapter,
where the general topic is stated, with the following passage, 'I have
heard from men like you that he who knows the Self overcomes grief. I am
in grief. Do, Sir, help me over this grief of mine;' from which passage
it would appear that the bhuman is the highest Self.--Hence there arises
a doubt as to which of the two alternatives is to be embraced, and which
is to be set aside.

The purvapakshin maintains that the bhuman is the vital air, since there
is found no further series of questions and answers as to what is more.
For while we meet with a series of questions and answers (such as, 'Sir,
is there something which is more than a name?'--'Speech is more than
name.'--'Is there something which is more than speech?'--'Mind is more
than speech'), which extends from name up to vital air, we do not meet
with a similar question and answer as to what might be more than vital
air (such as, 'Is there something which is more than vital air?'--'Such
and such a thing is more than vital air'). The text rather at first
declares at length (in the passage, 'The vital air is more than hope,'
&c.) that the vital air is more than all the members of the series from
name up to hope; it then acknowledges him who knows the vital air to be
an ativadin, i.e. one who makes a statement surpassing the preceding
statements (in the passage, 'Thou art an ativadin. He may say I am an
ativadin; he need not deny it'); and it thereupon (in the passage, 'But
he in reality is an ativadin who declares something beyond by means of
the True'[171]),--not leaving off, but rather continuing to refer to the
quality of an ativadin which is founded on the vital air,--proceeds, by
means of the series beginning with the True, to lead over to the bhuman;
so that we conclude the meaning to be that the vital air is the
bhuman.--But, if the bhuman is interpreted to mean the vital air, how
have we to explain the passage in which the bhuman is characterised.
'Where one sees nothing else?' &c.--As, the purvapakshin replies, in the
state of deep sleep we observe a cessation of all activity, such as
seeing, &c., on the part of