Commentary

This sequence of questions asks the reader to examine the basic facts of identity, and it leads toward the realisation that the empirical self is not the true self. The method of interrogation recalls the Upanishadic practice of inquiry into the self, and Shankara's commentaries repeatedly employ questions of this kind to expose the limits of ordinary self-understanding. Eliot Deutsch argues that the verse exemplifies the school's movement from the empirical ego to the witnessing self, which Advaita identifies with Brahman. Sengaku Mayeda's work on the Upadesasahasri shows how such questioning functions as a preparatory discipline for knowledge of the Self. Richard King notes the affinity between this kind of inquiry and the Buddhist analysis of the self, against which Shankara defined his position. Paul Hacker's study cautions that the verse belongs to popular devotional literature, whose form differs from the technical arguments of the commentaries. The questions are presented as a meditative exercise, and their attribution to Shankara rests on the tradition that gathered such verses under his name.