Who they are

Yajnavalkya is the most argumentative figure in the Upanishads, and the Brihadaranyaka is largely his book. Its third and fourth chapters are built almost entirely out of his conversations — with a hall of rival scholars, with a king, with his own wife — and the two formulations the text is best known for, neti neti and the passage on the Imperishable, both come out of his mouth under pressure. Tradition attaches him to the Shukla Yajurveda, the White recension, and holds that he received it; whatever one makes of that claim, the Brihadaranyaka belongs to that Veda and he dominates it.

The thing to notice first is his manner, because it is unusual for a wisdom text. When King Janaka of Videha offers a thousand cows to whichever assembled Brahmin knows Brahman best, Yajnavalkya does not wait for a verdict. He tells his pupil to drive the herd home and then answers challengers one by one to keep it. This is a teacher who claims the prize before the argument and then makes the claim good. Confidence of that kind is not incidental to what he teaches; it is the same refusal to hedge that produces a definition of the Self consisting entirely of denials.

His answers have a recognisable shape. Asked how many gods there are, he gives a large traditional number and then, question by question, reduces it — to thirty-three, then six, three, two, one and a half, and finally one — a compression rather than a dismissal, since at each step he names the smaller set as the real content of the larger. Asked by Gargi what space itself is woven on, he names the Imperishable and then describes it by removing every property in turn: not gross, not fine, without shadow, without taste, seeing but not seen. The method is consistent. Pare away until nothing further will come off, and call what remains the Self.

He is also the one figure in these texts who is dangerous to argue with. He warns Gargi that her head will fall off if she questions past a certain point, and later, when the scholar Vidagdha Shakalya keeps pressing without knowing his ground, the Upanishad says flatly that his head did fall. Whether one reads that literally or as the text's way of saying a man was destroyed in public, it tells you the assembly at Janaka's court was not a seminar. Yajnavalkya's sharpness is recorded rather than softened, and the text seems to think it is part of the portrait.

There is a quieter side, and it is easy to miss under the noise of the debate. With Maitreyi he is patient in a way he is with nobody else. When she tells him his teaching has left her bewildered, he does not tell her she has misunderstood; he says nothing bewildering has been said, and explains it again in different terms. The man who will let a rival's head fall takes the trouble to be understood by the person who actually wants to know.

And then he leaves. The last thing the Upanishad shows him doing is dividing his property between his two wives, Maitreyi and Katyayani, and going forth from the householder's life to wander. The man who out-argued every scholar in Videha is last seen giving away the winnings — which is the same movement as his method. Subtract, and subtract again, and see what is left standing.

Key dialogues

• Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi
• Gargi Questions Yajnavalkya
• I Am Brahman

Questions to explore

• Why does Yajnavalkya describe the Self only by negation — 'neti, neti'?
• What kind of knowing makes Yajnavalkya say 'I am Brahman' is the highest teaching?