We may refer to one more similar instance from the Chândogya Upanishad.
We there meet in III, 14 with one of the most famous vidyâs describing
the nature of Brahman, called after its reputed author the
Sâ/nd/ilya-vidyâ. This small vidyâ is decidedly one of the finest and
most characteristic texts; it would be difficult to point out another
passage setting forth with greater force and eloquence and in an equally
short compass the central doctrine of the Upanishads. Yet this text,
which, beyond doubt, gives utterance to the highest conception of
Brahman's nature that Sâ/nd/ilya's thought was able to reach, is by
/S/a@nkara and his school again declared to form part of the lower vidyâ
only, because it represents Brahman as possessing qualities. It is,
according to their terminology, not j/ñ/âna, i.e. knowledge, but the
injunction of a mere upâsanâ, a devout meditation on Brahman in so far
as possessing certain definite attributes such as having light for its
form, having true thoughts, and so on. The Râmânujas, on the other hand,
quote this text with preference as clearly describing the nature of
their highest, i.e. their one Brahman. We again allow that /S/a@nkara is
free to deny that any text which ascribes qualities to Brahman embodies
absolute truth; but we also again remark that there is no reason
whatever for supposing that Sâ/nd/ilya, or whoever may have been the
author of that vidyâ, looked upon it as anything else but a statement of
the highest truth accessible to man.

We return to the question as to the true philosophy of the Upanishads,
apart from the systems of the commentators.--From what precedes it will
appear with sufficient distinctness that, if we understand by philosophy
a philosophical system coherent in all its parts, free from all
contradictions and allowing room for all the different statements made
in all the chief Upanishads, a philosophy of the Upanishads cannot even