It is the king of sciences, the king among sciences, because it surpasses all in brilliance: the knowledge of Brahman shines beyond all sciences. So too it is the king of secrets, the king among secret things. It is purifying, cleansing, the supreme among all things that purify; the knowledge of Brahman is the highest cause of purity. Though action, with its root, merit, demerit and the rest, has been heaped up through many thousands of births, this knowledge reduces it to ashes in a single moment; so what need is there to speak of its purifying power? Further, it has direct apprehension, its apprehension being by direct experience, as one apprehends pleasure and the like. It is seen that what has many virtues may yet be opposed to dharma; not so the knowledge of the Self, which is in accord with dharma, not departing from it. Even so, it might be expected to be gained only with difficulty; in answer He says it is very easy to do, like the discerning knowledge that tells one gem from another. And while other actions, easy to accomplish and of small effort, are seen to have small fruit, and those hard to do have great fruit, this knowledge, since it is easy to accomplish, might be expected to pass away when its fruit is spent; to meet this He says it is 'imperishable': it has no passing-away of its fruit as action has. Therefore the knowledge of the Self is to be trusted. But those who.

It is the king of knowledges, the king among the knowledges; the king of secrets, the king among secrets; or 'royal knowledge' means the knowledge of kings, for kings are of broad and unfathomable mind, and this knowledge belongs to the great-minded. This is the meaning. The great-minded alone are skilled in guarding what is to be guarded, so this secret belongs to them alone. It is highest; purifying, the remover of all the taint that obstructs the attaining of Me; directly known, since the word for 'known object' here means the object whose thing-known has become directly present, that is, being worshipped by the worship that has the form of devotion, I come, at that very time, to be directly present to the worshipper. And it is lawful too, not departed from law; for the being-law of a thing is its being a means to the highest good, and this knowledge, of itself, by being exceedingly dear and by bringing about the sight of Me at that very time, though it is itself of the form of the highest good, is also the means to the unsurpassed attaining of Me which is the form of the highest, supreme good. For that very reason it is exceedingly happy to do, easy to take up, since it is to be taken up because exceedingly dear; imperishable, undecaying, since, even when it has accomplished the attaining of Me, it does not itself decay. To one who carries out worship of this form, even when the giving of Myself has been done, it seems to Me that nothing has been done by Me for him. This is the meaning.

'Royal knowledge' (raja-vidya) is the chief knowledge. That by which Brahman is directly known is 'direct knowing' (pratyaksha-avagama). He is 'pratyaksha' because He stands present in the senses (aksha). So the scripture says, 'He who, abiding in the breath, is within the breath, whom the breath does not know, whose body is the breath, who governs the breath from within, He is your self, the inner controller, the immortal; He who abides in speech, He who abides in the eye' (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3.7.16-18), and 'this Person who is seen within the eye' (Chandogya Upanishad 1.7.5), and 'the Person of the measure of a thumb, abiding in the thumb' (Mahanarayana Upanishad 15.5), and 'you are the mind, you are the moon, you are the eye, you are the sun' and the like in the Moksha-dharma. He is 'pratyaksha' because, by the word 'prati', He stands possessed of the senses among the senses, as the Bhabhravya branch of the Samaveda says, 'the knower who knows thus knows the direct one'. 'Dharma' is the Lord, and what has Him for its object is 'dharmya'. He is 'dharma' because He upholds the whole world, as the usage in the Moksha-dharma shows, 'the earth on the head of dharma', and 'the yogin is called the bearer of the burden' (Mahabharata 13.149.106); and the scripture says, 'being the upholder, He, though upheld, upholds' (Taittiriya Aranyaka 3.14). And a branch of the Samaveda says, 'dharma alone was this in the beginning, not the earth, not the wind, not space, not Brahma, not Rudra, not the gods, not the seers; He meditated'.