there is no room in this place. In order, however, to illustrate what is
meant by the 'impossibility,' above alluded to, of combining the various
doctrines of the Upanishads into a whole without doing violence to a
certain number of texts, it will be as well to analyse in detail some
few at least of /S/a@nkara's interpretations, and to render clear the
considerations by which he is guided.

We begin with a case which has already engaged our attention when
discussing the meaning of the Sûtras, viz. the question concerning the
ultimate fate of those who have attained the knowledge of Brahman. As we
have seen, /S/a@nkara teaches that the soul of him who has risen to an
insight into the nature of the higher Brahman does not, at the moment of
death, pass out of the body, but is directly merged in Brahman by a
process from which all departing and moving, in fact all considerations
of space, are altogether excluded. The soul of him, on the other hand,
who has not risen above the knowledge of the lower qualified Brahman
departs from the body by means of the artery called sushum/n/â, and
following the so-called devayâna, the path of the gods, mounts up to the
world of Brahman. A review of the chief Upanishad texts on which
/S/a@nkara founds this distinction will show how far it is justified.

In a considerable number of passages the Upanishads contrast the fate of
two classes of men, viz. of those who perform sacrifices and meritorious
works only, and of those who in addition possess a certain kind of
knowledge. Men of the former kind ascend after death to the moon, where
they live for a certain time, and then return to the earth into new
forms of embodiment; persons of the latter kind proceed on the path of
the gods--on which the sun forms one stage--up to the world of Brahman,
from which there is no return. The chief passages to that effect are Ch.
Up. V, 10; Kaush. Up. I, 2 ff.; Mu/nd/. Up. I, 2, 9 ff.; B/ri/. Up. VI,