the veins, primarily the sushum/n/â, on which, according to so many
other passages, the soul of the wise mounts upwards. But that path is,
according to /S/a@nkara, followed by him only who has not risen above
the lower knowledge, and yet the /s/lokas have manifestly to be
connected with what is said in the latter half of 6 about the owner of
the parâ vidyâ. Hence /S/a@nkara sees himself driven to explain the
/s/lokas in 8 and 9 (of which a faithful translation is given in
Professor Max Müller's version) as follows:

8. 'The subtle old path (i.e. the path of knowledge on which final
release is reached; which path is subtle, i.e. difficult to know, and
old, i.e. to be known from the eternal Veda) has been obtained and fully
reached by me. On it the sages who know Brahman reach final release
(svargaloka/s/abda/h/ samnihitaprakara/n/ât mokshâbhidhâyaka/h/).

9. 'On that path they say that there is white or blue or yellow or green
or red (i.e. others maintain that the path to final release is, in
accordance with the colour of the arteries, either white or blue, &c.;
but that is false, for the paths through the arteries lead at the best
to the world of Brahman, which itself forms part of the sa/m/sâra); that
path (i.e. the only path to release, viz. the path of true knowledge) is
found by Brahman, i.e. by such Brâhma/n/as as through true knowledge
have become like Brahman,' &c.

A significant instance in truth of the straits to which thorough-going
systematisers of the Upanishads see themselves reduced occasionally!

But we return to the point which just now chiefly interests us. Whether
/S/a@nkara's interpretation of the chapter, and especially of section 6,
be right or wrong, so much is certain that we are not entitled to view