Upadēśa Undiyār · Forty Verses on Reality · Who Am I? (the author’s own prose revision)
Upadēśa Undiyār · Forty Verses on Reality · Who Am I? (the author’s own prose revision)
“Just being oneself is knowing oneself” — Upadēśa Undiyār 26
“Pure awareness beyond knowing and not-knowing” — Upadēśa Undiyār 27
“Enquire whence the false I arises” — Forty Verses on Reality
By enquiring into the source of the “I”-thought, Ramana makes the mind, body and thoughts taken as the self recede into non-objective self-evident being; but verse 25 of the Upadēśa Undiyār also says that knowing oneself without limiting adjuncts is knowing God, verse 26 immediately says that just being oneself is knowing oneself, and verse 27 further stipulates true awareness as going beyond knowing and not-knowing. Self-enquiry bears load in dismantling the false self, but it is not settled whether a function of right cognition distinct from “just being” must be retained in the final structure, so the question between ② and ① is genuinely open.
Placement｜②「Direct Seeing of the Ground」 (provisionally C); the ① / ② boundary substantively open
Final question｜Among the original presence of the ground, de-substantialization and the actual function of completion, which mediations are truly non-deletable? Positions are not assigned by “degree of mysticism”, nor on the strength of a single word for knowing or awareness.
T grades measure only documentary reliability: T1 = the core primary text of the object of study / text written by the person; T2 = disciples’ records, translations and editions, or texts with substantial transmissional mediation; T3 = later texts, or texts whose provenance / attribution is seriously disputed; T4 = later interpretation, hagiography, derivative schools. The specific layering is given in Sections 3 and 16.
A = a textual fact directly supported by the original; B = a strong structural inference across passages or across primary texts; C = a competing interpretation where both sides have reasonable primary-text support; D = an opposing test / evidence yet to be obtained. “The excerpt is verifiable as A” may not be passed off as “the philosophical inference is A”.
E-card directions are only of three kinds: support, limit, disputed; modern dialogues are given as [Chinese summary of an English-translated dialogue] or [Chinese gist of the author’s original work], not as unchecked verbatim quotation.
The Tamil Upadēśa Undiyār was written by the author, who also wrote a Sanskrit Upadēśa Sāram; this archive takes the author’s Tamil original as T1. The body of the Forty Verses on Reality was composed by the author and is T1; later commentaries may not be equated with the original verses. Who Am I? exists in an early question-and-answer version recorded by disciples and in a twenty-paragraph prose version later revised by the author himself; this archive takes only the author’s revised prose as T1, with the early records and later collections of answers as T2/T3 pending verification. This archive locates verses using later verse-by-verse translation-and-commentary pages that give the original Tamil; the Chinese is a gist, and the English translators’ added explanations are not passed off as the original verses.
Principles of this archive｜Distinguish the author’s original works, prose he revised himself, and disciples’ question-and-answer records;
T1 is authorial attribution of the text and by no means equals the absence of translational mediation. So far Upadēśa Undiyār 25—27 and Forty Verses on Reality 30 have been compared with the Tamil original; the other cards are still mostly read through English translations, and the layer of translation must be made explicit. The notes of translators and interpreters are not the author’s own words.
• The happiness of one’s own nature and the necessity of returning to the source: the opening of the author’s revised prose Who Am I? explains the purpose of self-enquiry.
• The false self and thoughts: in Upadēśa Undiyār 18—20 and Forty Verses on Reality 24—26, the false “I” arises by grasping form, and enquiring into it makes it subside.
• Original oneness: verses 21—24 regard the true “I” and the ground of being of God and soul as one; the knower is not a second entity.
• Limit statements: verse 25 “knowing oneself is knowing God”, verse 26 “just being oneself is knowing oneself”, verse 27 “beyond knowing and not-knowing”.
• Non-duality and state after completion: the being–awareness–bliss of verse 28 and the true self-evidence of Forty Verses on Reality 30 are narrated at the same time.
Order of each card: location, text level, statement of the evidence, role in the argument, prohibited overreach, verifiable source. The classical Sanskrit is a brief original phrase of the sūtra quoted; in Tamil works and modern dialogues, items marked [gist / summary] are not verbatim translations.
Original / checked gist: [Gist of the author’s original work] Going beyond all kinds of meditative visualization and abiding in being itself is the reality of the highest devotion.
Structural role: The practice activities of the preceding verses are turned into “just abiding”;
the counter-evidence in the ① direction is more than opposition to clinging to objects.
What it does not prove: One cannot conclude from “abiding” alone that the function of self-enquiry was never needed.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] Returning to and resting in the place where thought or the ego arises is the goal of the practices of action, devotion, yoga and knowledge.
Structural role: It states explicitly the form of completion shared by many paths: returning to the source, not maintaining a series of practices.
What it does not prove: This is not a synonym for “Buddhist realization of emptiness”, and may not be arbitrarily equated across traditions.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] Controlling the breath can make the mind subside temporarily; only by directing the mind to “the one path” can its form be destroyed.
Structural role: It distinguishes temporary suppression of the mind from the destruction of the mind brought about by self-enquiry, denying that completion comes merely from technical meditative states.
What it does not prove: “The one path” in this verse still refers to enquiry, and cannot be used to infer that everyone must follow the same outward ritual.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] Withdrawing the mind from external things and knowing the mind’s own light is true awareness.
Structural role: The object of knowledge turns toward itself, providing a candidate for a genuine cognitive transformation in the ② direction.
What it does not prove: “Self-awareness” is not necessarily a newly arising second knower;
it must be read against verses 26 and 27.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] Searching for the form of the mind, one finds that there is no independent mind; for anyone this is the direct path.
Structural role: It explicitly revokes, cognitively, the ordinary “I am thinking”; an act of investigation appears in the chain of completion.
What it does not prove: One cannot equate there being no independent mind with the body or the world no longer existing.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] Thoughts are the mind; of all thoughts the “I”-thought arises first; the mind is in fact this “I”-thought.
Structural role: It places “thinking, knowing, experiencing” within the generative relation of the false I-thought, giving a place to thought’s own cognitive activity.
What it does not prove: If this “I” is confused with the pure awareness of one’s own nature, the object to be broken will be taken for the ground.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] If one examines within whence the “I” arises, the false I perishes; this is the enquiry of knowledge.
Structural role: Self-enquiry stands in a direct conditional relation in the mechanism by which the false I disappears; a strong ② candidate.
What it does not prove: “Enquiring” is not answering with a name / metaphysical definition in words.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] Where the I-thought perishes, the true “I”, not made by egoic thinking, appears of itself.
Structural role: The disappearance of the false I and the self-appearance of the true “I” are set side by side, showing the tension between original presence and realization.
What it does not prove: Appearing of itself does not automatically prove that the function of “enquiry” can be deleted from the complete account.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] The true “I” is never interrupted and is not lost even in deep sleep, so the word “I” should refer to it.
Structural role: The highest subject is not a new object arising after an act of cognition;
①’s first condition gains textual support.
What it does not prove: The continuing nature in deep sleep does not mean that all mental knowing activity is permanently maintained.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] Body, senses, breath, mind and ignorance are not the real self, because they are ignorance or non-awareness.
Structural role: It continuously negates the ordinary body-mind subject, removing the objectification of the self.
What it does not prove: Negating these objects does not mean erasing the self-evident awareness that is the ground.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] That which exists is self-evident awareness; there is no separate “faculty of knowing” to know existence.
Structural role: It rejects a two-subject construction, and cognition as a newly installed tool is withdrawn; the ① competition grows stronger.
What it does not prove: “There is no other knower” is not the same as eliminating the function of seeing through the false I.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] God and the individual soul are one in their nature of being; the difference arises only from perception through limiting adjuncts.
Structural role: Original identity, the falsity of cognitive adjuncts and the removal of false identification form a systematic unity.
What it does not prove: “Original identity” cannot be directly upgraded into the functional deletion required for a complete ①.
Original / checked gist: [Tamil original (word division as in the transcription cited)] தன்னை யுபாதிவிட் டோர்வது தானீசன் றன்னை யுணர்வதா முந்தீபற தானா யொளிர்வதா லுந்தீபற.｜[Gist] Knowing oneself having given up the limiting adjuncts is knowing God, because God shines naturally as oneself.
Structural role: “Knowing oneself” is positively said to be knowing God, constituting the core cognitive identification of ②.
What it does not prove: This should not be read as a finite I knowing another divine being in the manner of an object.
Original / checked gist: [Tamil original (word division as in the transcription cited)] தானா யிருத்தலே தன்னை யறிதலாந் தானிரண் டற்றதா லுந்தீபற தன்மய நிட்டையீ துந்தீபற.｜[Gist] Just being oneself is knowing oneself, because the self is not two; this is the state of abiding in that.
Structural role: Read with verse 25: the author himself actively rewrites knowing oneself as non-dual being itself.
What it does not prove: It can cancel the substantiality of an independent “cognitive event”, but whether it cancels the function of the complete enquiry remains C.
Original / checked gist: [Tamil original (word division as in the transcription cited)] அறிவறி யாமையு மற்ற வறிவே யறிவாகு முண்மையீ துந்தீபற வறிவதற் கொன்றிலை யுந்தீபற.｜[Gist] Only the pure awareness beyond the duality of “knowing and not-knowing” is true awareness; there, there is no other object to be known.
Structural role: The strongest counter-evidence in the ① direction: the end does not retain a cognitive configuration in which “there is an object waiting to be known”.
What it does not prove: Pure awareness is not the absence of awareness; the ontological self-evidence must be distinguished from the function of enquiry that overcomes misidentification.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] Recognizing one’s own true nature is being–awareness–bliss without beginning or end, infinite and undivided.
Structural role: Completion language in which the knower seems to be one with its nature is still present; the ② direction keeps substantive strong evidence.
What it does not prove: One should not infer from the word “recognize” directly that a new cognitive subject is established.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] The insentient body does not say “I”; being–awareness does not rise; between the two the false “I” rises and becomes bondage.
Structural role: It distinguishes the unborn ontological illumination from the I-thought that rises and falls; the ① / ② test must first fix what is to be deleted.
What it does not prove: If what is deleted is the knowing activity of the false I, one cannot say that pure illumination as ground is deleted.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] The ego, like a formless ghost, appears and persists by grasping forms; when it is investigated, it flees.
Structural role: Enquiry is the direct condition of removing the false I, and cannot be written up as an ordinary philosophical discussion.
What it does not prove: Whether this enquiry is finally still an “independent right cognition” must be read against verse 26.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] When the false I appears, everything else appears with it; finding out what this false I is amounts to renouncing everything.
Structural role: It places cognitive activity, the world of objects and the I-thought within one and the same generative relation, forming a systematic place for thought itself.
What it does not prove: “Dependence on the false I” may not be wrongly turned into pure awareness depending on the false I.
Original / checked gist: [Tamil original (word division as in the transcription cited)] நானா ரெனமனமுண் ணாடியுள நண்ணவே நானா மவன்றலை நாணமுற — நானானாத் தோன்றுமொன்று தானாகத் தோன்றினுநா னன்றுபொருள் பூன்றமது தானாம் பொருள்.｜[Gist] Enquiring inwardly “who am I?”, where the false I perishes, the illumination of one’s true nature appears naturally as “I—I”.
Structural role: “Right enquiry” and “the natural appearing of the self” are explicitly set side by side: the key function of completion in the ② / ① competition.
What it does not prove: To ignore the enquiry in the first part on the strength of the “natural appearing” in the latter part alone would split the text.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] Everyone seeks happiness free of suffering; to obtain the bliss of one’s own nature, one must know oneself, so the enquiry of knowledge “who am I?” is the principal way.
Structural role: The T1 prose directly stipulates the significance of self-enquiry for liberation / the happiness of one’s own nature.
What it does not prove: One should not automatically treat every word of the later twenty-eight-question version as this prose fixed by the author himself.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] The self is not the physical body, the senses, the vital breath or the intellect; consciousness and the appearance of the world are bound up with thought. (Gist by paragraph)
Structural role: It withdraws the sayable objects of body and mind, and at the same time brings cognition and the experienced world into relation with the I-thought.
What it does not prove: This is not the same as declaring the body and the world physically void at the everyday level.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] When other thoughts arise, one should ask “to whom does this thought arise?” and bring attention back to the source of the “I”.
Structural role: Enquiry is not a conceptual question-and-answer but a function of returning to the source carried out each time a thought appears.
What it does not prove: The repetition of a teaching step does not automatically mean that a thought of enquiry is retained at the end.
Original / checked gist: [Gist] If oneself rises, other things rise with it; if oneself subsides, all objects subside too. (Gist)
Structural role: The closing words systematically gather up the correlated relation of self, world and cognition.
What it does not prove: “Oneself” here must be carefully distinguished as the false I or the pure awareness of one’s own nature; if they are confused, the six-position judgment would be reversed.
ātma-vicāra｜self-enquiry, not answering a question in words
aham-vṛtti｜the “I”-thought, the pivot on which the false self arises
ātma-svarūpa｜one’s true nature, not a new object of body and mind
aṟivu｜awareness / knowing; in different passages it can mean pure awareness or particular cognition, which must be kept apart
upādhi｜limiting adjuncts that make God and self appear different
tāṉ-āy iruttal｜being as oneself; especially crucial for verse 26
jñāna｜knowledge / knowing, reinterpreted in verse 27 as beyond object-knowledge and not-knowing
Positive evidence and limits｜The place of the ground is self-evident being–awareness, which does not rise and fall with the thoughts of the false I (E-09, E-13—E-16, E-17); but when the false I appears one must still trace it to its source and perceive its falsity (E-05—E-08, E-18—E-22). “Awareness is the ground” cannot be taken as sufficient reason to classify at ②, nor can “there is no dual knower” be directly classified as ①.
Necessary distinctions｜The ontological stipulation of pure awareness / the seer ≠ the function of right discernment in the process of liberation; the withdrawal of empirical cognition ≠ the cancellation of real being.
Strict single-function deletion test｜Delete only the function of “self-enquiry / right recognition directed at the place where the false I arises” (not deleting the already disproved false I, object-knowledge and the words of the question), keeping original illumination, the self-appearance of one’s own nature, and verses 26—27’s “being is knowing, no second object”. Result: (1) the ontological layer and the non-dual state after completion can still be narrated, so ① has systematic positive evidence; (2) the link “investigating the false I → the false I disappears → one’s own nature shines forth” in verses 17—20 and Forty Verses on Reality 30 lacks the turn the text assigns; (3) verses 25—27 do redefine “knowing oneself” as non-dual “just being”, so it cannot be asserted that enquiry as an independent cognitive event belongs to the end. The break lies in the path of breaking the false I and at the structural boundary; whether it is a necessary function or a removable teaching bridge admits equally reasonable readings. Provisionally ② (C), with ① a strong competitor at C, not a slight counter-reading.
Ruling on levels｜One’s own nature is not produced by enquiry, nor does enquiry go on repeating “who am I?” after completion. The primary texts on one side write “being oneself is knowing oneself” (verse 26), and on the other write “when the false I is investigated it disperses” (verses 17—19) and “enquiring, one’s own nature shines forth” (Forty Verses on Reality 30). These materials all belong to the person’s own works; the later verses cannot be used to cancel automatically the function of the earlier ones, nor can the method of the earlier verses be automatically treated as a final mediation. The evidence boundary is C.
Self-reflexivity / self-inclusion｜Forty Verses on Reality 24—26 bring the false I, the world and objective cognition into their correlation of arising and ceasing, and Upadēśa Undiyār 27 withdraws objectifying “knowing / not-knowing”; this is a cognitive self-reflexivity and local self-inclusion stronger than the common “language is incapable”. But at present there is no explicit text sufficient to prove that every event of this work itself being spoken and understood is completely placed as a positive occurrence of non-dual nature; the evidence for ①’s first condition exists but does not yet clearly pass. The competition between ① and ② cannot be decided by self-inclusion or self-reflexivity alone.
Reminder of the two conditions｜① must have both the positive built-in inclusion of thought’s own cognition / speech and the complete ultimate structure remaining unchanged once right cognition is deleted; proving the first does not replace the second.
Most delicate point｜The Tamil original of Upadēśa Undiyār 25—27 explicitly dismantles an independent object of knowledge in “knowing oneself without adjuncts — just being oneself is knowing oneself — true knowledge with nothing to be known”; Forty Verses on Reality 30, in a text by the same author, closely links “enquiring inwardly who I am” with “I—I appearing of itself”. If the former is taken as the end and the latter only as an expedient pointer, ① gains weight; if complete completion still requires a real function of seeing through the false I, ② gains weight. At present there is no direct text excluding either side, so C.
Priority of examination｜First check whether the positive and negative material within the same core text is misaligned between the path layer and the completion layer; then check whether renderings and T levels have been used asymmetrically.
Placement｜Provisionally ②「Direct Seeing of the Ground」 (C); ① is a strong competing interpretation with systematic T1 evidence (C); the ① / ② boundary is substantively open.
Derived from the structural chain｜The provisional ② is because the “awareness” of enquiring into the false I, seeing through the I-thought and returning to one’s true nature is not a negligible teaching appendix in the author’s original texts; but the systematic competition from ① has a double basis in the author’s own “just being” and “beyond knowledge”, so the core judgment may not be raised to B. The criterion of main task for ③ is relatively weak; the original texts focus more directly on liberation and the completion of one’s own nature.
Special limit｜② holds only if there really is a non-deletable function of “rightly recognizing the ground” at the end; ① cannot be established directly by the word for pure awareness as ground, nor by ignorance having been withdrawn.
He reverses the attempt to cognize the subject correctly into an investigation of the “I”-thought itself, so that the presumed knower exits in the course of enquiry;
in the most compact verse he states at once the necessity of method and the non-duality of the end.
Strongest counter-argument: Self-enquiry is an explicit practice, so it must belong to ② (B)
Adjudicated reply: The method has strong textual load, but verses 26—27 reduce knowing to just being, with no object any more; whether there is an independent function of right cognition in complete completion remains C.
Evidence boundary: This objection must be read together with the relevant T levels, the positive and negative E cards, and the strict deletion test of Sections 8—11; a single item does not constitute an automatic change of position.
Strongest counter-argument: Verse 26, “being oneself is knowing oneself”: ① beyond doubt
Adjudicated reply: It is indeed extremely strong positive evidence for ①; but verse 19 and Who Am I? also have enquiry bring about the disappearance of the false I, and the function of returning to the source cannot be directly deleted.
Evidence boundary: This objection must be read together with the relevant T levels, the positive and negative E cards, and the strict deletion test of Sections 8—11; a single item does not constitute an automatic change of position.
Strongest counter-argument: “I am awareness” defines the highest ground, and the classification should be ② on the strength of the word awareness
Adjudicated reply: Awareness as nature is different from the function of rightly recognizing one’s own nature; the six positions cannot be decided by an ontological predicate alone.
Evidence boundary: This objection must be read together with the relevant T levels, the positive and negative E cards, and the strict deletion test of Sections 8—11; a single item does not constitute an automatic change of position.
Strongest counter-argument: A sentence from later disciples’ question-and-answer records can correct the author’s original verses
Adjudicated reply: The author’s T1 original works should keep priority, with T2/T3 sayings second; where they conflict, one may not silently substitute one for the other.
Evidence boundary: This objection must be read together with the relevant T levels, the positive and negative E cards, and the strict deletion test of Sections 8—11; a single item does not constitute an automatic change of position.
Strongest counter-argument: Since enquiry is a method and after completion there is no questioning, the classification should directly be ①
Adjudicated reply: The appearance of a path ≠ automatically ②; the disappearance of a path ≠ automatically deletable; it must be tested whether the author makes seeing through falsity a necessary function of complete liberation.
Evidence boundary: This objection must be read together with the relevant T levels, the positive and negative E cards, and the strict deletion test of Sections 8—11; a single item does not constitute an automatic change of position.
Strongest counter-argument: True nature is non-dual, so others, the world and thought itself cannot possibly exist
Adjudicated reply: The texts speak of the dependence of the false I and of self-evident being; this does not mean that a complete social ethics / cosmological physics can be derived independently from this archive.
Evidence boundary: This objection must be read together with the relevant T levels, the positive and negative E cards, and the strict deletion test of Sections 8—11; a single item does not constitute an automatic change of position.
With No.31 Śaṅkara: both distinguish original nature from the misidentification of ignorance, but “being oneself is knowing oneself” in Ramana’s verses must be taken as independent T1 primary evidence, and its meaning may not be decided by means of Śaṅkara’s commentaries.
With No.34 Nisargadatta: “even the witness dissolves” in the latter’s translated and edited dialogues may be structurally similar to Ramana’s verses 26—27, but one may not overleap the T1/T2 difference to unify their placements directly.
Discipline of comparison｜The positions of different archives can only be compared through the same functional deletion test, and may not be upgraded because someone seems more mystical, closer to some tradition, or on the strength of later sayings.
By enquiring into the source of the “I”-thought, Ramana makes the mind, body and thoughts taken as the self recede into non-objective self-evident being; but verse 25 of the Upadēśa Undiyār also says that knowing oneself without limiting adjuncts is knowing God, verse 26 immediately says that just being oneself is knowing oneself, and verse 27 further stipulates true awareness as going beyond knowing and not-knowing. Self-enquiry bears load in dismantling the false self, but it is not settled whether a function of right cognition distinct from “just being” must be retained in the final structure, so the question between ② and ① is genuinely open.
What is non-deletable, and the dispute｜First separate what is deleted: with the false I-thought, objectifying self-knowledge and verbal answers deleted, the complete endpoint still holds, and the texts explicitly demand this deletion (E-06, E-11, E-14—E-15); but if the whole function of “investigating whence the false I arises / discerning one’s own nature” is deleted, it is hard to explain how the conditions for the subsiding of the false I in E-05—E-08 and E-18—E-22 hold. On the other hand, verses 26—27 explicitly stipulate “just being is knowing” and “there is nothing else to be known”, providing a grounded competing reading for a complete ①. So both sides are still C: the path is not directly equated with a non-deletable end, nor is de-objectification directly equated with functional deletion.
Final six-position placement｜②「Direct Seeing of the Ground」 (C); ① a strong competitor (C), boundary open.
Note on Tamil collation｜The original lines of verses 25, 26 and 27 of the Upadēśa Undiyār have each been checked against https://www.sriramanateachings.org/blog/2017/09/upadesa-undiyar-tamil-text.html; verse 30 of the Forty Verses on Reality against https://www.sriramanateachings.org/blog/2017/10/ulladu-narpadu-tamil-text.html, with the original lines added only on the corresponding E cards.
English translations and notes still belong to the layer of translation and interpretation. E-21—E-24, the author’s revised prose Who Am I?, keep T1 authorial attribution, but the Chinese summaries still follow English translations and are not marked as word-for-word renderings of the Tamil. The T1 of the other E cards for the Upadēśa Undiyār and the Forty Verses on Reality likewise guarantees only the status of the author’s original work, and does not imply that word-for-word Tamil collation has been completed for all.
The author’s Tamil original Upadēśa Undiyār, verse by verse｜https://www.sriramanateachings.org/original-writings.html
Forty Verses on Reality: original text with translation and commentary｜https://www.sriramanateachings.org/blog/2017/10/ulladu-narpadu-tamil-text.html
The twenty-paragraph prose of Who Am I? revised by the author｜https://www.sriramanateachings.org/nan_yar.html
Tamil / Sanskrit parallel reference for the Upadēśa Undiyār｜https://www.sriramanateachings.org/blog/2022/03/upadesa-sarah-sanskrit-text.html
Review of text levels｜The Tamil Upadēśa Undiyār was written by the author, who also wrote a Sanskrit Upadēśa Sāram; this archive takes the author’s Tamil original as T1. The body of the Forty Verses on Reality was composed by the author and is T1; later commentaries may not be equated with the original verses.
Who Am I? exists in an early question-and-answer version recorded by disciples and in a twenty-paragraph prose version later revised by the author himself; this archive takes only the author’s revised prose as T1, with the early records and later collections of answers as T2/T3 pending verification. This archive locates verses using later verse-by-verse translation-and-commentary pages that give the original Tamil; the Chinese is a gist, and the English translators’ added explanations are not passed off as the original verses.
Evidence still lacking｜No systematic collation against ancient manuscripts / facsimiles of original editions; no word-by-word check of all divergences between English translations and the original language; where research is insufficient, limitations are kept at C/T2, and completed collation is not claimed.
Archive status｜Chinese content v1.3 (2026-10-22); this version includes the C-grade reasonable disputes marked in the text, and does not represent completed collation against all documentary facsimiles.
Retained criterion question｜The same author, in verses 25, 26 and 27, successively says “knowing oneself”, then “being oneself is knowing oneself”, and finally “there is no longer anything else to be known”. Is the cognitive function completely deleted, or is it redefined as non-dual self-knowing that bears load in complete completion? The author’s own version of Who Am I? should be read closely at the same time; unlayered transcriptions of question-and-answer sessions may not be used to decide these verses in reverse.
Content check｜Evidence E-01—E-24 continuous; objections R-01—R-06 continuous.