from the contact of the sense-organs with their objects.  If the word Kha were not applied to qualify the sense of Ka we should conclude that ordinary pleasure is here called Brahman.  But as the two words Ka and Kha (occur together and therefore) qualify each other, they intimate Brahman whose Self is pleasure.  If[149] in the passage referred to (viz.  ‘Breath is Brahman, Ka is Brahman, Kha is Brahman’) the second Brahman (i.e. the word Brahman in the clause ‘Ka is Brahman’) were not added, and if the sentence would run ‘Ka, Kha is Brahman,’ the word Ka would be employed as a mere qualifying word, and thus pleasure as being a mere quality would not be represented as a subject of meditation.  To prevent this, both words—­Ka as well as Kha—­are joined with the word Brahman (’Ka (is) Brahman, Kha (is) Brahman’).  For the passage wishes to intimate that pleasure also, although a quality, should be meditated upon as something in which qualities inhere.  It thus appears that at the beginning of the chapter Brahman, as characterised by pleasure, is spoken of.  After that the Garhapatya and the other sacred fires proclaim in turns their own glory, and finally conclude with the words, ’This is our knowledge, O friend, and the knowledge of the Self;’ wherein they point back to the Brahman spoken of before.  The words, ’The teacher will tell you the way’ (which form the last clause of the concluding passage), merely promise an explanation of the way, and thus preclude the idea of another topic being started.  The teacher thereupon saying, ’As water does not cling to a lotus leaf, so no evil deed clings to one who knows it’ (which words intervene between the concluding speech of the fires and the information given by the teacher about the person within the eye) declares that no evil attacks him who knows the person within the eye, and thereby shows the latter to be Brahman.  It thus appears that the teacher’s intention is to speak about that Brahman which had formed the topic of the instruction of the fires; to represent it at first as located in the eye and possessing the qualities of Sa/m/yadvama and the like, and to point out afterwards that he who thus knows passes on to light and so on.  He therefore begins by saying, ’That person that is seen in the eye that is the Self.’

16.  And on account of the statement of the way of him who has heard the Upanishads.

The person placed in the eye is the highest lord for the following reason also.  From sruti as well as sm/ri/ti we are acquainted with the way of him who has heard the Upanishads or the secret knowledge, i.e. who knows Brahman.  That way, called the path of the gods, is described (Pra.  Up.  I, 10), ’Those who have sought the Self by penance, abstinence, faith, and knowledge gain by the northern path the sun.  This is the home of the spirits, the immortal, free from fear, the highest.  From thence they do not return;’ and also (Bha.  Gita VIII, 24), ’Fire, light, the bright fortnight,