The story

Shaunaka, described as a great householder, approached the sage Angiras in the proper way and asked a question with a very wide reach: "What is it, sir, by knowing which all this becomes known?" He is not asking for one more fact. He is asking whether there is a single knowledge that, once gained, leaves nothing essential unknown.

Angiras answers by drawing a line through everything that can be called knowledge. There are two knowledges to be known, he says — a higher and a lower. The lower (apara vidya) includes even the four Vedas, grammar, ritual, astronomy, all the sciences. The higher (para vidya) is that by which the Imperishable is known — the source that has no eyes yet sees, no ears yet hears, from which all worlds come forth.

It is a startling sort under that calm answer: the most sacred texts, the whole library of learning, fall on the near side of the line. Not because they are false, but because they are *about* things — and the higher knowledge is not about anything. It is the knowing of that which, known, leaves nothing over. The lower knowledge adds and adds; the higher one ends the adding.

Figures and teachings in this dialogue

• Angiras
• Shaunaka
• Teaching: All This Is Brahman

Questions to explore

• Why does Angiras count even the Vedas among the 'lower' knowledge?
• What is the single 'higher' knowledge that makes everything else known?