I do not wish, however, to urge these last observations, and am ready to
admit that not impossibly those iva's indicate that the thought of the
writer who employed them was darkly labouring with a conception akin
to--although much less explicit than--the Mâyâ of /S/a@nkara. But what I
object to is, that conclusions drawn from a few passages of, after all,
doubtful import should be employed for introducing the Mâyâ doctrine
into other passages which do not even hint at it, and are fully
intelligible without it.[28]

The last important point in the teaching of the Upanishads we have to
touch upon is the relation of the jîvas, the individual souls to the
highest Self. The special views regarding that point held by /S/a@nkara
and Râmânuja, as have been stated before. Confronting their theories
with the texts of the Upanishads we must, I think, admit without
hesitation, that /S/a@nkara's doctrine faithfully represents the
prevailing teaching of the Upanishads in one important point at least,
viz. therein that the soul or Self of the sage--whatever its original
relation to Brahman may be--is in the end completely merged and
indistinguishably lost in the universal Self. A distinction, repeatedly
alluded to before, has indeed to be kept in view here also. Certain
texts of the Upanishads describe the soul's going upwards, on the path
of the gods, to the world of Brahman, where it dwells for unnumbered
years, i.e. for ever. Those texts, as a type of which we may take, the
passage Kaushît. Up. I--the fundamental text of the Râmânujas concerning
the soul's fate after death--belong to an earlier stage of philosophic
development; they manifestly ascribe to the soul a continued individual
existence. But mixed with texts of this class there are others in which
the final absolute identification of the individual Self with the
universal Self is indicated in terms of unmistakable plainness. 'He who
knows Brahman and becomes Brahman;' 'he who knows Brahman becomes all