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Hinduism (Vedanta)

Principles

Hinduism (Vedānta) — Core Principles (core-principle)

Minimal operational principle set synthesized from the complete Vedānta book-level distillation — the Bhagavad Gītā (Arnold, The Song Celestial, 1885; all 18 chapters) and all thirteen principal Upanishads of Hume's set (Paramananda, The Upanishads, 1919, for Īśā/Kaṭha/Kena; Hume, The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, 1921, for the remaining ten) — and the internal cross-source convergence layer across the two text-families. Method: 00-methodology.md; canon/translation: README. This is one structured reading, not authoritative — and emphatically so for Hinduism, a vast family of traditions with no single canon or creed: any single principle set privileges one stream (here Vedānta) over many others, and the chosen translations each carry a documented slant (Arnold's blank-verse paraphrase; Paramananda's Advaita-leaning commentary; Hume's scholarly literal translation). No within-tradition reviewer was secured. Each principle carries a cross-tradition note — the claim that may converge vs the warrant that may diverge — to feed the cross-tradition Atlas. All quotes are pending future audit.

Cross-lingual prose discipline (structural-completeness v1.4): Sanskrit (IAST transliteration) and devanāgarī appear in principle titles, the untranslatables glossary (this file + 00-methodology.md), and direct quotations from Arnold/Hume/Paramananda where the named English is the load-bearing claim. Synthesis prose explains in English with explicit glossary-anchor references back to 00-methodology.md#canonical-theme-taxonomies (e.g., pañca-kośa (the five sheaths — see canonical taxonomies)). Stray foreign tokens without glossary anchor are avoided.

supplementary supplementary update (2026-05): Six additional Upanishads (Muṇḍaka, Māṇḍūkya, Śvetāśvatara, Aitareya, Taittirīya, Praśna) were added to the corpus. The 14-principle structure is preserved; Evidence and Covers fields are additively extended below where the new Upanishads attest existing principles. The major effects: (1) the Mahāvākyas (ayam ātmā brahma in Māṇḍūkya, prajñānam brahma in Aitareya) strengthen P1; (2) the Śvetāśvatara dissolves the previously Gītā-distinctive status of P3 (māyā/guṇas) and P13 (bhakti); (3) the Taittirīya's concrete ethical praxis (truth, dharma, hospitality) extends P7 beyond sva-dharma-as-caste. No principle was removed.

supplementary supplementary+ update (2026-05, prior pass): The Chāndogya (selections) and Bṛhadāraṇyaka (selections) — the two longest and oldest principal Upanishads, traditionally treated by the Vedānta commentarial tradition as the canonical anchors — were added. The 14-principle structure is again preserved; Evidence/Covers fields are again additively extended. Major effects: (1) all four classical Mahāvākyas now attested for P1: tat tvam asi (Chānd 6.8–16, nine repetitions), aham brahmāsmi (Bṛh 1.4.10), ayam ātmā brahma (Mand 2), prajñānam brahma (Ait 3.5.3) — plus the Śāṇḍilya-vidyā's sarvaṃ khalv idaṃ brahma (Chānd 3.14.1); (2) P12 (knowledge / apophatic method) gains its canonical apophatic formula — Bṛh's neti, neti (4.4.22) — and the Chāndogya's 101-year Prajāpati-Indra teaching as the canonical pedagogical model; (3) P11 (mokṣa) gains its canonical scriptural anchor for the karma/rebirth mechanism — Bṛh's caterpillar/goldsmith and "as one acts, so one becomes" (Bṛh 4.4.3–5); (4) P2 (the One pervading all) gains its strongest single-text articulation — the Bṛhadāraṇyaka's antaryāmin-Brāhmaṇa (Bṛh 3.7, 21-fold formula) and the Chāndogya's bhūmā doctrine (Chānd 7.23–24, the sat-cit-ānanda anchor); (5) P14 (one Self in all) is strengthened by the antaryāmin; (6) one new candidate WEAK-distinctive contribution — the Bṛhadāraṇyaka's Maitreyī teaching (every love is mediated love of the Self, Bṛh 2.4.5) — gives Vedānta a distinctive structural argument for the redirection (not condemnation) of ordinary love. No principle was removed.

supplementary supplementary+ completion (2026-05, prior pass): The Kauṣītaki (Rig — 4 adhyāyas) and Maitri (Black Yajur — 7 prapāṭhakas) were added — the final two of Hume's thirteen principal Upanishads. The classical principal-Upanishad set is now complete. The 14-principle structure was preserved; Evidence/Covers fields additively extended. Major effects: (1) P1 (ātman = brahman) is strengthened by Kauṣītaki's prāṇa-as-prajñātman — the chariot-axle unity "this same breathing spirit is the intelligential self; bliss, ageless, immortal" (Kau 3.8) — and by Maitri's kṣetra-jña (Maitri 2.5, the earliest extant occurrence of the technical term; the direct Upanishadic anchor for the Gītā's chapter 13 doctrine, until now only loosely paralleled in Mund 3.1.1's two birds); (2) P2 (the One pervading all) is strengthened by Kauṣītaki's prāṇa-as-Brahman (Kau 2.1–2) — the same Inner Controller (Bṛh's antaryāmin) named from inside, as the conscious life-self — and by Maitri's ākāśātman: "He whose soul is space… He who is in fire, heart, sun is one" (Maitri 6.17); (3) P10 (meditation) gains its most procedurally developed witness — Maitri's six-limbed yoga (prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhyāna, dhāraṇā, tarka, samādhi — Maitri 6.18, the earliest extant scriptural listing of a multi-limbed yoga path), plus the spider-and-thread Om-meditation (Maitri 6.22) and the body-bow/Om-arrow image (Maitri 6.24, direct echo of Mund 2.2.3–4); (4) P11 (mokṣa) is strengthened by Kauṣītaki's two-paths doctrine (Kau 1.2–4: devayāna through the moon to brahmaloka, "he will not grow old"; pitṛyāna back into rebirth "according to his deeds, according to his knowledge") — and by Maitri's pessimist-of-life frame ("in this cycle of existence I am like a frog in a waterless well" — Maitri 1.4); (5) P12 (knowledge / apophatic method) is strengthened by Kauṣītaki's seer-not-the-seen rule — "Speech is not what one should desire to understand. One should know the speaker… Mind is not what one should desire to understand. One should know the thinker (mantṛ)" (Kau 3.7–8) — and by Bālāki-Ajātaśatru's "the maker of the persons, not the persons, is to be known" (Kau 4.19) — verbatim parallel to Bṛh 2.1; (6) P13 (devotion/grace) is partially strengthened by Kauṣītaki's antinomian "no greater by good, no lesser by bad" (Kau 3.8) — verbatim cousin of Bṛh 4.4.22 — and by Maitri's "tapas → sattva → mind → Self" ladder culminating in "on winning whom, no one returns" (Maitri 4.3); (7) P14 (equal vision) is strengthened by Maitri's "He who is in fire, heart, sun is one" (Maitri 6.17). Two new candidate WEAK-distinctive contributions: Maitri's six-limbed yoga listing (D6 in the cross-source layer — the direct bridge to Patañjali's later aṣṭāṅga), and Kauṣītaki's prāṇa-as-Brahman (D7 — the antaryāmin seen from inside as conscious life). No principle was removed.

structural-completeness structural-completeness retrofit (2026-05-30, this pass): The Phase-2 sample-deep audit (PASSed Phase 2.5 cross-check) identified 3 standalone gaps, 5 sub-element placements requiring explicit naming in principle prose, and 3 explicit deferrals against the Phase-0 canonical theme-taxonomies. This pass applies the fixes: (1) two new standalone principles — P15 catur-puruṣārtha (the four-aim architecture of legitimate human ends, with the corpus's near-absence of artha treatment explicitly flagged) and P16 pañca-kośa (the Taittirīya's five-sheath layered Vedāntic anthropology, distinct from P1's identity-claim because it is a method — peel back appearances layer by layer — not a conclusion); (2) five expansions to existing principles: P1 amended to name the four classical mahāvākyas as canonical scriptural tetrad + the Advaita/Viśiṣṭādvaita/Dvaita interpretive divergence at the warrant level; P2 amended to name the antaryāmin doctrine (Bṛh 3.7's 21-fold formula) + the Advaita-vs-Viśiṣṭādvaita reading divergence; P7 amended to name the renunciate-vs-householder framing-problem of the four-āśrama frame (the Gītā's structural problem-statement) with Maitri 4.3 anchor; P12 amended to name neti neti as the canonical apophatic seal (Bṛh 4.4.22) and cross-referenced to P2 as the paired Bṛhadāraṇyaka method (affirm the One pervades all + deny that the Self can be positively named); the three-paths framing (P5, P12, P13, and the orientation note) tightened to flag that the plurality-of-temperaments framing is a Vivekānanda-era neo-Vedānta synthesis (classical schools rank the paths differently); (3) three deferrals recorded with category + criterion: aṣṭāṅga-yoga (Patañjali, cat. 2 out-of-scope); Brahma-Sūtras (third leg of prasthāna-trayī, cat. 2 out-of-scope); Müller SBE Upanishads (cat. 1 PD source genuinely access-blocked at Cloudflare-protected sacred-texts.com — Future work). The Scope/orientation note now also acknowledges that this corpus has two of the three legs of the prasthāna-trayī (Gītā + principal Upanishads; Brahma-Sūtras deferred). No principle was removed. Net change: 14 → 16.

Corpus & method note

This synthesis draws on all 136 chapter/Upanishad-level principles in the 31 book-level files (18 Gītā chapters + 13 principal Upanishads of Hume's set, after the supplementary supplementary+ completion). The cross-source layer identified eight internal-D=2 nodes (doctrines attested independently by both the Gītā and the Upanishads) as the load-bearing Vedānta core; these are flagged [cross-source: D=2] below — and after supplementary carry 3–10 Upanishadic witnesses each, not just the original Īśā/Kaṭha/Kena. supplementary revision: three formerly Gītā-distinctive contributions (bhakti — now attested in Śvetāśvatara 6.23; the guṇas and māyā — now attested in Śvetāśvatara 1, 4, 5; concrete ethical praxis — now attested in Taittirīya 1.11 and 3.10) are reclassified as D=2 within Vedānta at the claim level. Only sva-dharma-as-caste-duty remains strictly Gītā-distinctive. The Taittirīya's pañca-kośa (five-sheath anthropology) is now its own standalone core-principle principle (P16, structural-completeness addition).

Scope and architecture (structural-completeness addition)

This synthesis carries two of the three legs of the prasthāna-trayī (the "triple foundation" every classical Vedāntic school commented upon — see 00-methodology.md item 9): the Bhagavad Gītā and the principal Upanishads. The third leg, the Brahma-Sūtras (Bādarāyaṇa's ~555 systematic aphorisms compressing Upanishadic doctrine), is deliberately deferred under category 2 (out of textual focus) — adding them would change the corpus's character from "primary scriptural texts" to "primary + scholastic compression." A within-tradition reviewer would expect this methodological scope-flag named in the synthesis, not just buried in the methodology footnote.

The canonical architecture of legitimate human ends in classical Hindu thought is the catur-puruṣārtha — four aims: dharma (right order), artha (wealth / power / worldly success), kāma (desire / pleasure), and mokṣa (liberation) as the supervening fourth. This synthesis attests each puruṣārtha individually (P5/P7 dharma; P8 kāma; P11 mokṣa) and now also as the four-fold architecture itself at P15 — see canonical taxonomies. One notable corpus emphasis worth flagging at the synthesis level: artha — wealth and worldly power as a legitimate aim — is the least attested of the four in the Gītā+Upanishads. The four-aim system is systematized in the Dharmaśāstric tradition (Manusmṛti) and assumed throughout the Gītā as background; the Vedāntic emphasis falls on the mokṣa-pole. A within-tradition reviewer would notice the artha near-absence as itself an Atlas-relevant finding rather than a silent omission.

Why 16

16 emerged from clustering the 136 chapter/Upanishad principles by intent (not forced to match any other tradition's count). The original 14 (post-supplementary supplementary+) reflected the load-bearing Vedānta core; the structural-completeness structural-completeness retrofit (2026-05-30) added P15 catur-puruṣārtha (the four-aim architecture as standalone) and P16 pañca-kośa (the Taittirīya's five-sheath layered anthropology as standalone), after the sample-deep audit found both as standalone gaps against the canonical theme-taxonomy list. The bar is 100% canonical-taxonomy coverage. Hubs: ātman = brahman (P1), karma-yoga / desireless action (P5), and mokṣa (P11) recur across the most chapters — the structural centre of the corpus.

The 16 principles

P1 — The Self (ātman) is deathless, and in its depth is one with the absolute (brahman) — anchored by the four classical mahāvākyas

The innermost reality is birthless, deathless, changeless — "weapons reach not the Life; flame burns it not, waters cannot o'erwhelm." It changes bodies as one changes worn-out robes. To think "I slay" or "I am slain" is ignorance. In the tradition's central inquiry, this Self is, in its depth, not separate from brahman, the ground of all being — the "knower of the field" present in every body.

The four classical mahāvākyas (catur-mahāvākya — see canonical taxonomies): the canonical scriptural anchor of this identity is the four "great sayings," each drawn from one Veda and each attested verbatim within this corpus:

  • tat tvam asi ("That thou art") — Chāndogya 6.8–16, repeated nine times in Uddālaka's instruction of Śvetaketu (Sāma-Veda branch);
  • aham brahmāsmi ("I am brahman") — Bṛhadāraṇyaka 1.4.10 (White-Yajur branch);
  • ayam ātmā brahma ("This Self is brahman") — Māṇḍūkya 2 (Atharva branch);
  • prajñānaṃ brahma ("Awareness / consciousness is brahman") — Aitareya 3.5.3 (Rig branch).

The grouping-as-tetrad is itself a post-Śaṅkara Advaita scholastic synthesis (one mahāvākya per Veda is a scholastic mnemonic; the Upanishads themselves do not present them as a four-member set; cf. Olivelle, Early Upaniṣads, intro). The interpretation of these sayings is the canonical Vedāntic fault-line at the warrant level — the same scriptural claim is read to opposite conclusions across the three classical schools. Advaita (Śaṅkara) reads them as absolute identity (the apparent person and brahman are not two; the difference is māyā); Viśiṣṭādvaita (Rāmānuja) reads them as qualified non-difference (the self is brahman's body — śarīra-śarīrin — non-different but really distinct, like a particle of the whole); Dvaita (Madhva) reads them as similarity, not identity (the self resembles brahman; the difference between Lord and souls is permanent and real). This distillation reports the claim (the four sayings, attested verbatim) and flags the warrant-level school divergence as load-bearing — Vedānta speaks with one voice on the claim and three voices on what the claim means. A within-tradition reviewer would expect this divergence named in the principle prose, not just in the methodology footnote.

  • Covers: G2-P1, G13-P1, G15-P2 · Katha-P2, Isa-P3 · R3-add: Mund-P3, Mund-P6, Mand-P1, Ait-P1, Ait-P4, Tait-P4, Svet-P5 · R3+-add: Chānd-P1 (sarvaṃ khalv idaṃ brahma — Śāṇḍilya-vidyā), Chānd-P2 (ekam evādvitīyam), Chānd-P3 (tat tvam asi — nine repetitions), Bṛh-P1 (aham brahmāsmi), Bṛh-P3 (the antaryāmin), Bṛh-P7 (neti, neti — the apophatic seal) · R3+ completion-add: Kau-P4 (Indra's "I am the breathing spirit, the intelligential self [prajñātman]; reverence me as life, as immortality" — Kau 3.2), Kau-P6 (the chariot-axle unity — "this same breathing spirit is the intelligential self; bliss, ageless, immortal" — Kau 3.8), Maitri-P3 (kṣetra-jña — Maitri 2.5, earliest extant), Maitri-P6 (ākāśātman — "He who is in fire, heart, sun is one" — Maitri 6.17) · Evidence: Gītā 2, 13, 15; Katha 2.XVIII–XX; Isa 4–5; R3: Mund 2.1.1, 3.2.9; Mand 2; Ait 1.1.1, 3.5.3; Tait 2.1; Svet 4.3–4; R3+: Chānd 3.14.1, Chānd 6.2.1, Chānd 6.8.7 / 6.9.4 / 6.10.3 / 6.11.3 / 6.12.3 / 6.13.3 / 6.14.3 / 6.15.3 / 6.16.3 (tat tvam asi × 9 — the Sāma-Veda mahāvākya), Bṛh 1.4.10 (aham brahmāsmi — the White-Yajur mahāvākya), Mand 2 (ayam ātmā brahma — the Atharva mahāvākya), Ait 3.5.3 (prajñānaṃ brahma — the Rig mahāvākya), Bṛh 3.7.3–23, Bṛh 4.4.22; R3+ completion: Kau 3.2, Kau 3.8, Maitri 2.5 (kṣetra-jña), Maitri 6.17 · [cross-source: D=2 G↔U; D=10 within Upanishads] (all four classical mahāvākyas attested verbatim + the Śāṇḍilya-vidyā + the apophatic seal + Kauṣītaki's prāṇa-prajñātman + Maitri's kṣetra-jña — the single most-secured doctrine in the corpus)
  • Untranslatable: ātman (the innermost self), brahman (the absolute); catur-mahāvākya (the four "great sayings" — see canonical taxonomies); tat tvam asi, aham brahmāsmi, ayam ātmā brahma, prajñānaṃ brahma
  • Cross-tradition note: the sharpest single node in the whole pool. Claim (there is an immortal Self) directly contradicts Buddhist anattā (no abiding self) — same metaphysical question, opposite answer; converges-in-claim with Abrahamic soul-affirmation. But the warrant — the soul's identity with the absolute (tat tvam asi) — diverges from a created soul distinct from its creator. Subtle point flagged: Buddhism does not deny the deathless-claim (Mahāyāna and Theravāda alike name a deathless / unconditioned reality grounding release); the divergence is at the substrate — Vedānta says the deathless is a Self; Buddhism says the deathless is not a Self (it is anattā, nibbāna, unconditioned). At the deathless-level the claims may even converge (cross-link: the Atlas's R5 "apophasis as form-convergence" finding includes Buddhist neti / SN 22.85 Yamaka anti-annihilation and Vedāntic neti neti); at the self-level they diverge. The Advaita/Viśiṣṭādvaita/Dvaita warrant-level divergence on the mahāvākyas, named above, is itself an Atlas-relevant claim-vs-warrant finding — a tradition that holds one claim and three warrants on its load-bearing identity statement. WEAK-distinctive (ātman=brahman).

P2 — The One pervades and underlies all things, yet transcends them — named most precisely as the antaryāmin (the Inner Controller)

The divine is the inner essence of every reality — "the fresh taste of the water, the silver of the moon, the gold o' the sun" — sustaining all yet dwelling "Outside of all," unattached. Brahman is beyond the pairs of opposites ("not Asat, not Sat… within all beings—and without"), the "ear of the ear, mind of the mind." Beyond even the cosmic cycles abides the Unmanifest, Imperishable (akṣara); higher still is the Supreme Person (Puruṣottama).

The antaryāmin doctrine (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.7 — see canonical taxonomies): the canonical scriptural articulation of this pervading-and-transcending One is the antaryāmin (the "Inner Controller") of Bṛh 3.7's 21-fold formula, in which the same litany is repeated for 21 elements (earth, waters, fire, atmosphere, wind, sky, sun, quarters of heaven, moon and stars, space, darkness, light, all things, breath, speech, eye, ear, mind, skin, understanding, semen): "He who, dwelling in [X], yet is other than [X], whom [X] does not know, whose body [X] is, who controls [X] from within — He is your Soul, the Inner Controller, the Immortal." The formula's structural moves — present-in-everything, yet other-than-everything, whom everything does not know, whose body everything is, who controls from within — together compose the most concentrated panentheist-immanentist statement in the entire principal-Upanishad corpus, and it is the canonical scriptural anchor for what later Vedānta calls the śarīra-śarīrin (body-and-soul) cosmology. Kauṣītaki names the same Inner Controller from inside, as prāṇa (conscious life — Kau 2.1–2's four-fold repetition); Maitri 6.17 names it as ākāśātman ("He whose soul is space").

School-divergence at the warrant (parallel to P1's mahāvākya-divergence): Advaita (Śaṅkara) reads the antaryāmin as the one Self appearing-as-controller — there is only the Self; the multiplicity of "X" is māyā. Viśiṣṭādvaita (Rāmānuja) reads it as the metaphysical anchor of śarīra-śarīrin cosmology — each thing is really the Lord's body, and the Lord is the soul of that body; the formula is the scriptural ground of the entire qualified-non-dualist metaphysics. Dvaita (Madhva) reads it as the Lord-as-controller and the soul-as-controlled as ontologically distinct controllers. This distillation reports the claim (one indweller in all) and flags the warrant as school-specific.

Paired Bṛhadāraṇyaka method (cross-reference to P12 — neti neti): the antaryāmin and neti neti together form the canonical Bṛhadāraṇyaka method — affirm the One pervades all (Bṛh 3.7's 21-fold "He is your Soul, the Inner Controller") and deny that the Self can be positively named (Bṛh 4.4.22's "not this, not that"). The pair is one of the corpus's signature methodological structures: positive-immanence + apophatic-transcendence held together as the same teaching in two registers. P12 carries the apophatic pole; this principle (P2) carries the affirmative-immanence pole; together they bound the corpus's articulation of the absolute.

  • Covers: G7-P1, G8-P2, G9-P1, G10-P1, G10-P2, G13-P3, G15-P3, G15-P4 · Kena-P1, Kena-P2, Isa-P1 · R3-add: Mund-P3, Mand-P3 (apophatic turīya), Svet-P1, Svet-P5, Ait-P1, Tait-P4, Tait-P5 (Brahma as ānanda) · R3+-add: Bṛh-P3 (antaryāmin), Bṛh-P4 (akṣaram), Chānd-P4 (bhūmā), Chānd-P5 (hṛdaya-ākāśa) · R3+ completion-add: Kau-P3 (prāṇa is Brahman — the antaryāmin seen from inside as conscious life), Kau-P6 (the maker-of-the-persons — Kau 4.19), Maitri-P6 (the infinite Brahma "whose soul is space" — Maitri 6.17) · Evidence: Gītā 7–10, 13, 15; Kena 1; Isa 1; R3: Mund 2.1.1, 2.2.10; Mand 7; Svet 1.2–3, 4.3–4; Ait 1.1.1; Tait 2.1, 3.6; R3+: Bṛh 3.7.3–23 (the 21-fold antaryāmin formula — the canonical scriptural anchor), Bṛh 3.8.8–11, Chānd 7.23–25, Chānd 8.1.3; R3+ completion: Kau 2.1–2 (prāṇa as Brahman — repeated 4×), Kau 4.19, Maitri 6.17 · [cross-source: D=2 G↔U; D=7 within Upanishads] (AUM/Imperishable, apophatic Fourth, panentheist immanence, antaryāmin in canonical 21-fold formula, bhūmā-bliss, prāṇa-as-Brahman, ākāśātman)
  • Untranslatable: brahman, Īśvara (the personal Lord), akṣara (the Imperishable), puruṣottama; antaryāmin (the Inner Controller — the Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.7 doctrine, see canonical taxonomies); śarīra-śarīrin (body-and-soul — Rāmānuja's Viśiṣṭādvaita cosmology grounded on the antaryāmin)
  • Cross-tradition note: a major convergence-and-divergence node. Panentheist immanence resonates with mystical strands across traditions; the apophatic core (Kena's "beyond known and unknown" + Bṛh 4.4.22's neti neti — see P12) is a strong convergence node with negative theology (via negativa, the unnameable Tao — cf. Atlas R5 apophasis-as-form-convergence finding). The warrant — the world as the Lord's lower Nature, veiled by māyā, and the indweller being one's own deepest Self — diverges from creator/creature dualism and from non-theistic frames alike. The Advaita/Viśiṣṭādvaita/Dvaita school-divergence on the antaryāmin, named above, is itself a structurally significant Atlas finding — the same scriptural formula reads as monist-illusionist (Advaita), qualified-non-dualist-cosmological (Viśiṣṭādvaita), or pluralist-with-Lord (Dvaita) — the same claim with three warrants is itself a Vedāntic distinctive.

P3 — Māyā and the three guṇas veil the truth; few pierce the veil

Creatures are bewildered by the three strands of nature — sattva (light), rajas (passion), tamas (inertia) — which compose all embodied life and each bind the soul, even the highest. The world-appearance (māyā) hides the One; the guṇa dominant at death shapes the next birth. Of many, scarcely one strives for truth. The goal is to "be free of the three qualities," transcending nature rather than perfecting it.

  • Covers: G2-P5, G7-P2, G14-P1, G14-P2, G14-P4, G17-P2 · R3-add: Svet-P1 (the One God's power hidden in the guṇas), Svet-P2 (Prakṛti=māyā, Maheśvara=māyin) · Evidence: Gītā 2, 7, 14, 17; R3: Svet 1.2–3, 4.9–10, 5.7 · [cross-source: D=2 within Vedānta — supplementary revision] (Śvetāśvatara explicitly attests both guṇas and māyā — no longer Gītā-distinctive)
  • Untranslatable: māyā (world-appearance / veiling power), guṇa (sattva/rajas/tamas)
  • Cross-tradition note: claim (appearances deceive; truth is hidden and hard-won) converges with many wisdom traditions; the warrant — a threefold nature (guṇas) and māyā as the structure of the deception — is distinctively Sāṃkhya-Vedāntic and has no close cross-tradition twin. WEAK-distinctive (guṇa, māyā).

P4 — Action is unavoidable — purify it, do not flee it

"No man shall 'scape from act by shunning action"; nature compels everyone to act. The path is not abstention but action without attachment. Suppressing the body while the mind still dwells on sense-objects is hypocrisy; abandoning a rightly-prescribed duty is tamasic delusion. Renunciation (tyāga) is of the fruit, not the act — egoless action does not bind.

  • Covers: G3-P1, G5-P1, G18-P1 · Isa-P2 · R3-add: Mund-P2 (works as "unsafe boats" reframes the doctrine: ritual alone fails, but disinterested action and knowledge together cross over) · Evidence: Gītā 3, 5, 18; Isa 2; R3: Mund 1.2.7, 1.2.10–11 · [cross-source: D=2] (Īśā's "act undefiled" prefigures karma-yoga; Muṇḍaka sharpens the contrast between work-only and work+knowledge)
  • Cross-tradition note: claim (one cannot opt out of acting; integrity is in how one acts) converges broadly; the distinctive Vedānta move is to dissolve the action/renunciation dichotomy — renounce attachment, not engagement. The Īśā's knowledge-and-works complementarity (cross over death by works, attain immortality by knowledge) is its clearest statement.

P5 — Karma-yoga: act without attachment to the fruit

"Let right deeds be thy motive, not the fruit which comes from them." Disciplined, desireless action is itself yoga and "bursts the bondage of works" (karma-bandha). The detached one acts thinking "Nought of myself I do," unstained by deeds "as the lotus-leaf by water." Whatever you do — eat, give, pray — do it "For Me, as Mine," and it frees you.

  • Covers: G2-P3, G4-P3, G5-P1, G9-P2, G18-P1 · Isa-P2 · Evidence: Gītā 2, 4, 5, 9, 18; Isa 2 · [cross-source: D=2]
  • Untranslatable: yoga ("yoking"/discipline/union), karma (action and its binding fruit), karma-mārga (the action-path — one of the three mārgas; see canonical taxonomies item 5)
  • Cross-tradition note: claim ("duty for its own sake," detachment from outcomes) converges with Stoic and duty-ethics strands; the warrant — release from karma-bandha / saṃsāra — is frame-specific. Note: karma is the same word but a different metaphysic than Buddhist kamma (here it binds a real, abiding Self). Three-paths framing note: karma-yoga is one of three paths the Gītā names (with jñāna-yoga at P12 and bhakti-yoga at P13); the three-as-a-formal-triad is Gītā-internal (Chapters 12, 18), but the "adapted to different temperaments" framing that became the popular synthesis is a Vivekānanda-era neo-Vedānta formulation (1893 Chicago lectures and after), not classical. Classical school readings rank the paths differently — Advaita treats jñāna as supreme (with karma-yoga preparatory and bhakti for those who can't yet do jñāna); Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita treat bhakti as supreme. This distillation does not adjudicate.

P6 — Selfless action as sacrifice upholds the world (lokasaṃgraha)

Work offered as sacrifice (yajña) and service liberates; "they that spread a feast all for themselves eat sin and drink of sin." The world's wheels turn by mutual sacrifice. The wise act — though needing nothing — to sustain the order of the world and to set an example, as Krishna himself acts. The sattvic gift is given freely to one who can render nothing back.

  • Covers: G3-P2, G17-P2 · R3-add: Tait-P2 (give with śraddhā, sympathy), Tait-P6 ("refuse no guest"; food as the sacred currency of ṛta) · Evidence: Gītā 3, 17; R3: Tait 1.11.3–4, 3.10 · [cross-source: D=2 within Vedānta — supplementary revision] (Taittirīya's hospitality/giving ethics extends the engaged-service principle into the Upanishadic family)
  • Untranslatable: yajña (sacrifice), lokasaṃgraha (upholding/holding-together the world)
  • Cross-tradition note: a strong convergence candidate with stewardship / common-good principles (cf. Catholic Social Doctrine's common good): claim (act for the good of the whole, not the self; disinterested giving) converges; the warrant (a cosmic-sacrificial economy that "turns the wheels of the world") is frame-specific.

P7 — Do your own duty (sva-dharma) with integrity — and the Gītā's framing-problem: renunciate vs householder

"Better to do one's own duty imperfectly than another's well." One's duty, fitted to one's nature and done with fault, surpasses another's done well, "for every work hath blame, as every flame is wrapped in smoke." Right action (dharma) is not self-evident — genuine moral crises arise where every choice seems to bring sorrow or wrong (the frame of the whole dialogue).

The Gītā's framing-problem (the renunciate-vs-householder tension within the four-āśrama frame — see canonical taxonomies item 2): the entire Gītā is Krishna's reply to a structural problem Arjuna poses on the battlefield: should he act (do his kṣatriya-svadharma and fight) or renounce (flee the battlefield as a vānaprastha/saṃnyāsa move)? The two options map directly onto the classical four-āśrama life-arc — brahmacarya (student), gṛhastha (householder), vānaprastha (forest-dweller), saṃnyāsa (renunciate) — in which world-engagement and world-renunciation are normatively temporally sequenced. Arjuna's despondency is the framing-problem made flesh: the warrior at the battlefield's edge wonders whether the renunciate-knowledge-seeking path supersedes his station's duty. Krishna's reply is the Gītā's signature reconciliation: do your sva-dharma (act in your station) without attachment to fruit (the inner disposition of the renunciate) — as yoga. The two paths are not sequenced; they are integrated in karma-yoga (P5). Maitri 4.3 endorses "pursuit of one's regular duty, in one's own stage of the religious life" — the within-Upanishadic anchor for āśrama-locked svadharma. The four-āśrama system itself is Dharmaśāstric and outside this distillation's textual scope (Manusmṛti and the Dharmasūtras systematize it); but its framing-problem is the Gītā's own, and naming it here makes P5's reconciliation intelligible as the answer to a real ethical-structural problem rather than a detached doctrinal claim.

  • Covers: G1-P1, G3-P3, G18-P3 · R3-add: Tait-P1 (the teacher's concrete precepts: speak truth, practise dharma, honour mother/father/teacher/guest) — note: the sva-dharma-as-caste warrant remains Gītā-distinctive; concrete ethical-praxis-broadly is now D=2 within Vedānta · R3+ completion-add: Maitri 4.3 ("the āśrama-locked svadharma" — the within-Upanishadic anchor for the four-stage framing the Gītā's problem-statement presupposes) · Evidence: Gītā 1, 3, 18; R3: Tait 1.11; R3+ completion: Maitri 4.3 · [cross-source: D=2 within Vedānta for concrete ethical praxis; D=1 (Gītā-only) for sva-dharma-as-varṇa — supplementary revision]
  • Untranslatable: dharma (duty / right-order / law / righteousness — no single English word), sva-dharma (one's own duty); catur-āśrama (the four life-stages — see canonical taxonomies item 2: brahmacarya / gṛhastha / vānaprastha / saṃnyāsa)
  • Cross-tradition note: claim (integrity to one's own calling; moral life is genuinely hard) is portable and converges broadly. The warrant is contested even within modern Hinduism: in the text sva-dharma is bound up with the varṇa (caste) order, fixed by birth-station. This distillation reports that warrant and does not endorse the social hierarchy; the claim (fidelity to one's role/calling) is separable from it. The renunciate-vs-householder framing-problem the Gītā poses has no exact cross-tradition twin in identical form — most contemplative traditions hold a similar tension (Christian monasticism vs marriage; Buddhist sangha vs lay; Daoist hermit vs civic sage) but rarely in the same age-staged-life-arc structure; the four-āśrama frame is distinctively Hindu, and a candidate WEAK-distinctive contribution to Atlas comparative-religion frames.

P8 — Desire (kāma) is the enemy of wisdom; lust, wrath, and greed are the gates of hell

Brooding on sense-objects breeds attraction → desire → passion → recklessness → "ruin of mind and man." Desire, born of rajas, is "man's enemy," insatiable, veiling discernment "as smoke blots the white fire." The three gates of hell are lust, wrath, and avarice; the world of saṃsāra is an inverted tree whose binding roots are cut by the "axe of detachment." Choose the good (śreyas) over the pleasant (preyas).

  • Covers: G2-P4, G3-P4, G5-P3, G15-P1, G16-P3 · Katha-P1 · R3+-add: Bṛh-P2 (Maitreyī: every love is mediated love-of-Self — the structural argument that redirects rather than condemns ordinary love) · Evidence: Gītā 2, 3, 5, 15, 16; Katha 2.I–II; R3+: Bṛh 2.4.5 (parallel Bṛh 4.5.6) · [cross-source: D=2] (good>pleasant; desire as snare; Maitreyī's structural redirection)
  • Untranslatable: kāma (desire/lust), rajas (the passion-strand), śreyas/preyas (the good vs. the pleasant), saṃsāra
  • Cross-tradition note: among the strongest convergence candidates — claim (disordered craving destroys the person; lust/wrath/greed are cardinal evils) converges very widely with ascetic, wisdom, and deadly-sins traditions; the warrant (desire as what chains the Self to saṃsāra) is frame-specific but mild.

P9 — Equanimity is the mark of wisdom (sthitaprajña)

The wise hold pleasure and pain, gain and loss, honour and shame, "with a constant calm," and so "live in the life undying." The senses are reined in "as the wise tortoise draws its four feet." The transcender of the guṇas is "the same to clod and gold," to friend and foe; the beloved devotee bears "shame and glory" with an equal heart.

  • Covers: G2-P2, G6-P1, G12-P4, G13-P2, G14-P4 · Evidence: Gītā 2, 6, 12, 13, 14 · [cross-source: D=2] (paired with self-mastery)
  • Untranslatable: sthitaprajña (one of steady wisdom)
  • Cross-tradition note: broad convergence — claim (steadiness amid fortune's swings; even-mindedness) converges with Stoic apatheia, Buddhist equanimity (upekkhā), and contemplative traditions generally; the warrant (steadiness flows from knowing the deathless Self) is frame-specific.

P10 — The path is meditation, moderation, and self-mastery (dhyāna)

"Let each man raise the Self by Soul" — the self is its own best friend when mastered, its worst foe when not. The path of dhyāna is walked through solitude, an even mind, and the "middle way" of moderation, making the mind "a lamp sheltered from the wind." The Self rides the chariot of the body: intellect the driver, mind the reins, senses the horses — only the disciplined reach the goal beyond rebirth.

  • Covers: G6-P1, G6-P2, G6-P3 · Katha-P5, Katha-P6 · R3-add: Svet-P3 (concrete yoga: posture/breath/place; the chariot of vicious horses), Mund-P4 (Om-as-bow meditation), Mand-P4 (AUM mapped to the four states), Prasna-P4 (graded AUM meditation), Prasna-P1 (year of tapas/brahmacarya/śraddhā under the teacher) · R3+ completion-add: Maitri-P2 (the chariot-image inverted — the Self as non-acting spectator-driver), Maitri-P7 (the six-limbed yoga — prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhyāna, dhāraṇā, tarka, samādhi — Maitri 6.18; the spider-and-thread Om-meditation; the body-bow / Om-arrow / darkness-mark — direct echo of Mund 2.2.3–4) · Evidence: Gītā 6; Katha 3.III–IX, 3.XIV; R3: Svet 2.8–13; Mund 2.2.3–4; Mand 8–12; Prasna 1.1–2, 5.2; R3+ completion: Maitri 2.6–7 (chariot inverted), Maitri 6.18 (six-limbed yoga — earliest extant scriptural listing), Maitri 6.22 (spider-and-thread), Maitri 6.24 (body-bow / Om-arrow) · [cross-source: D=2 G↔U; D=6 within Upanishads on AUM-meditation; D=2 within Vedānta on multi-limbed yoga praxis] (Maitri 6.18 is the most procedurally developed contemplative text in the principal corpus and the textual seam to Patañjali's later aṣṭāṅga)
  • Untranslatable: dhyāna (meditation), abhyāsa (repeated practice)
  • Cross-tradition note: claim (self-mastery, moderation, disciplined attention) converges very widely (cf. Buddhist primacy-of-mind and ascetic moderation across faiths); the contemplative method is portable, the metaphysical goal frame-specific. Katha's "Arise! Awake! the path is sharp as a razor" converges with the universal call to spiritual vigilance.

P11 — Liberation (mokṣa) is release from rebirth into the deathless

The goal is mokṣa: to reach the Imperishable beyond the cosmic cycles, from which "none return," so that one "tastes birth no more." Mastering lust and anger, the sage finds an inner bliss that "touches nirvāna in Brahman"; the freed soul, "as pure water poured into pure water," becomes one with the Supreme. True knowledge of the divine reality ends the round of birth and death.

  • Covers: G4-P2, G5-P3, G8-P3, G9-P4, G14-P3, G15-P1, G18-P4 · Katha-P5, Isa-P5 · R3-add: Mund-P6, Prasna-P5, Tait-P5, Svet-P7, Ait-P3 · R3+-add: Bṛh-P6 (the canonical karma-mechanism — Bṛh 4.4.3–5), Bṛh-P7, Chānd-P7, Chānd-P4 · R3+ completion-add: Kau-P1 (the two post-mortem paths — devayāna through the moon to brahmaloka, "he will not grow old"; pitṛyāna back into rebirth "according to his deeds, according to his knowledge" — Kau 1.2–3, narrative-rich anchor for the karma-shaped rebirth doctrine parallel to Chānd 5.10 and Gītā 8.24–26), Kau-P2 (at the threshold the knower "shakes off his good deeds and his evil deeds… devoid of good deeds, devoid of evil deeds, a knower of Brahma, unto very Brahma goes on" — Kau 1.4; sharp convergence with Bṛh 4.4.22), Kau-P4 (the antinomian "no greater by good, no lesser by bad" — Kau 3.8), Maitri-P1 (the strongest pessimistic-of-life frame — "in this cycle of existence I am like a frog in a waterless well" — Maitri 1.4) · Evidence: Gītā 4, 5, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18; Katha 2.XI, 5; Isa 9–11; R3: Mund 3.2.8–9; Prasna 6.5–6; Tait 3.6; Svet 6.16; Ait 2.4; R3+: Bṛh 4.4.3–5, Bṛh 4.4.22, Chānd 8.1.6, Chānd 7.23–24; R3+ completion: Kau 1.2–4, Kau 3.8, Maitri 1.3–4 · [cross-source: D=2 G↔U; D=10 within Upanishads] (Kauṣītaki's two-paths doctrine gives V7 its most narrative-rich scriptural articulation; Maitri's saṃsāra-pessimism is the corpus's sharpest opening claim-level convergence with the Buddha's first noble truth)
  • Untranslatable: mokṣa (release/liberation), saṃsāra (the round of birth-death-rebirth)
  • Cross-tradition note: a deep-divergence node alongside P1. Claim (an ultimate liberation/peace beyond suffering) loosely converges with "salvation/beatitude"; the "other shore" image is even shared with Buddhism. But the warrant — release from saṃsāra into identity with brahman, against cyclical cosmic time — diverges fundamentally from linear-time, single-life eschatologies and from Buddhist cessation (union-with-brahman, not extinction).

P12 — Saving knowledge (jñāna) is the highest sacrifice, given by grace, sought from a teacher (guru) — and the neti neti apophatic seal

"The sacrifice which Knowledge pays is better than great gifts"; the fire of jñāna "wastes works' dross away." True knowledge sees "one changeless Life in all the Lives." Yet the Self "cannot be attained by argument… He whom the Self chooses, by him alone is It attained"; and "he who thinks he knows It, knows It not." It is gained "by reverence, by strong search, by humble heed of those who see the Truth" — transmitted through a lineage (guru-paramparā), not merely reasoned.

Neti neti — the canonical apophatic seal (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 4.4.22 / 2.3.6 — see canonical taxonomies item 8): the canonical Upanishadic articulation of knowledge-by-negation is Yājñavalkya's "not this, not that" (Hume verbatim: "That Soul (Ātman) is not this, it is not that (neti, neti). It is unseizable, for it cannot be seized. It is indestructible, for it cannot be destroyed. It is unattached, for it does not attach itself. It is unbound. It does not tremble. It is not injured. Him [who knows this] these two do not overcome — neither the thought 'Hence I did wrong,' nor the thought 'Hence I did right.' Verily, he overcomes them both. What he has done and what he has not done do not affect him." — Bṛh 4.4.22). The same formula is given at Bṛh 2.3.6 ("neti, neti — not so, not so"). This is the principled refusal of any positive predicate of the Self — no description from within the cognized world reaches the Cognizer. Kauṣītaki names the same regress as the seer-not-the-seen rule (Kau 3.7–8: "Speech is not what one should desire to understand. One should know the speaker… Mind is not what one should desire to understand. One should know the thinker (mantṛ)") — sharp Upanishadic articulation of the apophatic move from object to subject.

Paired Bṛhadāraṇyaka method (cross-reference to P2 — antaryāmin): neti neti and the antaryāmin together form the canonical Bṛhadāraṇyaka method — neti neti denies that the Self can be positively named; the antaryāmin (P2) affirms that the One pervades all. The method is one of the corpus's signature methodological structures: hold positive-immanence and apophatic-transcendence together as the same teaching in two registers. This principle (P12) carries the apophatic pole; P2 carries the affirmative-immanence pole.

  • Covers: G4-P2, G4-P4, G18-P2 · Katha-P3, Kena-P3 · R3-add: Mund-P1, Mund-P6, Svet-P6, Svet-P7, Prasna-P1, Tait-P1 · R3+-add: Bṛh-P7 (neti, neti — Bṛh 4.4.22, 2.3.6 — the canonical apophatic seal), Bṛh-P4 (akṣaram in negation), Chānd-P6 (Prajāpati's 101-year teaching) · R3+ completion-add: Kau-P5 (the seer-not-the-seen rule — Kau 3.7–8; close kin to Kena's "ear of the ear, mind of the mind"), Kau-P6 (the maker-of-the-persons is to be known, not the persons themselves — Kau 4.19, verbatim parallel to Bṛh 2.1), Maitri-P6 (the apophatic "incomprehensible, unlimited, unborn, not to be reasoned about, unthinkable" — Maitri 6.17) · Evidence: Gītā 4, 18; Katha 2.XXIII; Kena 2; R3: Mund 1.1.4–5, 3.2.3, 3.2.9; Svet 3.20, 6.23; Prasna 1.1–2; Tait 1.11; R3+: Bṛh 4.4.22, Bṛh 2.3.6 (neti, neti — the apophatic seal), Bṛh 3.8.8, Chānd 8.7–12; R3+ completion: Kau 3.7–8, Kau 4.19, Maitri 6.17 · [cross-source: D=2 G↔U; D=9 within Upanishads] (knowledge by grace + the guru + the apophatic method + the seer-not-the-seen rule — Bṛh 4.4.22's neti neti is the canonical formula of the entire Upanishadic apophatic discipline)
  • Untranslatable: jñāna (saving knowledge/gnosis, vs avidyā, ignorance), guru (teacher), śraddhā (faith); neti neti ("not this, not that" — the canonical apophatic formula); guru-paramparā (the teacher-lineage tradition through which jñāna is transmitted); jñāna-mārga (the knowledge-path — one of the three mārgas; see canonical taxonomies item 5)
  • Cross-tradition note: claim (wisdom over mere ritual; realization over reasoning; humble apprenticeship to the wise; even the worst can be redeemed) converges broadly — and the apophatic "knowing-by-unknowing" converges sharply with mystical/negative-theology strands across traditions (Christian/Jewish negative theology, the unnameable Tao at TTC 1, Buddhist neti / SN 22.85 Yamaka anti-annihilation, Bahá'í Íqán — the Atlas's R5 "apophasis as form-convergence" finding makes this an officially-tracked held tension). The warrant (knowledge as the fire that consumes karma and ends rebirth; the Self knowing itself as not-this-not-that) is frame-specific. Three-paths framing note: jñāna-yoga is one of three paths (with karma-yoga at P5 and bhakti-yoga at P13); classical school readings rank the paths differently — Advaita treats jñāna as supreme (the direct realization of tat tvam asi); Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita treat bhakti as supreme and jñāna as unable to reach the personal Lord alone. This distillation does not adjudicate; the "adapted to different temperaments" popular formulation is Vivekānanda-era neo-Vedānta synthesis, not classical-Gītā. (For the school-divergence at the mahāvākya warrant level — Śaṅkara reads jñāna as recognizing absolute identity; Rāmānuja and Madhva read it within their respective qualified-non-dualist and pluralist frames — see P1.)

P13 — Devotion and grace (bhakti) — the welcoming Lord receives every seeker

People come to the divine from many motives — the suffering, the seeker, the wise — and "all are good." Loving devotion to the personal Lord is the dearest, most attainable path, with a graded ladder for every capacity (fix the heart on Me → practise → work for Me → bring even your failure). The smallest offering "in faith and love" is accepted; "none can perish, trusting Me"; and the final word is total surrender: "Make Me thy single refuge! I will free thy soul from all its sins."

  • Covers: G4-P1, G7-P3, G8-P1, G9-P2, G9-P3, G9-P4, G10-P3, G11-P4, G12-P1, G12-P2, G18-P5 · R3-add: Svet-P1 (the One God Rudra/Īśa as cause), Svet-P5 (panentheist immanence: "Thou art woman, Thou art man…"), Svet-P6 (the Self by prasāda), Svet-P7 ("highest bhakti for God and for the teacher as God" — Svet 6.23, the only occurrence of bhakti in the principal Upanishads), Prasna-P3 (last thought determines next world — verbatim with Gītā 8.6) · Evidence: Gītā 4, 7–12, 18; R3: Svet 1.2–3, 3.20, 4.3–4, 6.23; Prasna 3.10 · [cross-source: D=2 within Vedānta — supplementary revision] (the bhakti pole is now explicitly attested in the Śvetāśvatara — no longer Gītā-distinctive at the claim level; the Gītā remains the most-developed exponent)
  • Untranslatable: bhakti (loving devotion/surrender), OM/AUM (the sacred syllable, "Emblem of BRAHM"), avatāra (divine descent), prapatti (self-surrender — a Viśiṣṭādvaita technical term distinct from bhakti), śraddhā (faith — distinct from bhakti), Īśvara (the personal Lord); bhakti-mārga (the devotion-path — one of the three mārgas; see canonical taxonomies item 5)
  • Cross-tradition note: the single strongest grace-convergence node in the corpus. Claim (loving surrender to a personal God who welcomes all seekers, forgives sin, and saves by grace, not works) converges strikingly with Christian sola gratia, Islamic mercy, and Pure Land "other-power" — and stands in sharp divergence from Buddhist self-effort ("you yourself must make the effort"). The warrant — repeated avatāra across cyclical yugas, and the last-thought directing the next birth — is saṃsāra-specific. The bhakti path is the most accessible-to-laity and most cross-tradition-legible face of the Gītā. Three-paths framing note: bhakti-yoga is one of three paths (with karma-yoga at P5 and jñāna-yoga at P12); Viśiṣṭādvaita (Rāmānuja) and Dvaita (Madhva) treat bhakti as supreme (with karma-yoga preparatory and jñāna unable to reach the personal Lord alone); Advaita treats jñāna as supreme and bhakti as for those who can't yet do jñāna. The Gītā itself (Ch. 12) declares bhakti the easier path and the formless-impersonal path as "with greater struggle" — there is a ranking, not just a flat plurality. The popular "adapted to different temperaments" formulation is Vivekānanda-era neo-Vedānta synthesis, not classical-Gītā; this distillation does not adjudicate the ranking.

P14 — The equal vision: one Self in all beings (the root of ahiṃsā)

The wise "see the same Self everywhere, with equal eye" — "the Brahman with his scrolls, the cow, the elephant, the unclean dog, the Outcast… are all one." He who sees all beings in the Self "never turns away… how can there be delusion or grief?" The divine endowment is harmlessness, truthfulness, and tenderness "towards all that suffer"; the demonic is the nihilism that denies all moral order. This equal regard is the practical face of ātman-knowledge.

  • Covers: G1-P2, G5-P2, G12-P3, G13-P4, G16-P1, G16-P2, G17-P3 · Isa-P4 · R3+-add: Bṛh-P3 (the antaryāmin: one Self in earth/fire/sun/mind/breath/ear/eye/semen — "controls each from within" — Bṛh 3.7.3–23, the 21-fold formula), Bṛh-P5 (33 gods → 6 → 3 → 2 → 1 — Bṛh 3.9.1), Chānd-P5 (the small space within the heart contains the whole world — Chānd 8.1.3) · Evidence: Gītā 1, 5, 12, 13, 16, 17; Isa 6–7; R3+: Bṛh 3.7.3–23, Bṛh 3.9.1, Chānd 8.1.3 · [cross-source: D=2] (the unitive vision grounding non-harm; Bṛhadāraṇyaka's antaryāmin gives the canonical scriptural anchor for "one Self in all," and is the foundation of the later śarīra-śarīrin cosmology in Rāmānuja)
  • Untranslatable: ahiṃsā (non-harm), samadarśana (equal vision)
  • Cross-tradition note: a striking convergence node — claim (radical equal regard for all beings, across caste and even species; non-harm; the virtue/vice typology of the divine and demonic) converges deeply with other traditions' equality and non-harm claims (Jain ahiṃsā, Christian neighbour-love, the Beatitudes' merciful character). But the warrant is distinctively Vedāntic and monist: equality follows not from each being's separate, creator-conferred worth but from the identity of the one Self in all — a warrant-level divergence even where the claim matches. (Strongest internal anchor: Isa 6–7 ↔ Gītā 5/13/18; reinforced by the antaryāmin's "controls from within" formula — P2 — that makes monist-grounded equality a panentheist claim, not a sentiment.)

P15 — Catur-puruṣārtha (चतुर्पुरुषार्थ): the four aims of life as the canonical architecture of legitimate human ends

Classical Hindu thought names four legitimate aims (catur-puruṣārtha — see canonical taxonomies item 1) that together compose the architecture of a properly-lived life. They are: dharma (right order / moral law / station-specific duty — the regulative aim that orients the others); artha (wealth, power, worldly success — the material aim); kāma (desire / pleasure / the goods of sense and affection — the experiential aim); and mokṣa (liberation — the supervening fourth that re-orders all the others). The first three are trivarga (the "three-fold," the worldly aims); the fourth is apavarga (the transcendent aim) and the supervening of mokṣa over the first three is the Vedāntic emphasis. This corpus attests each puruṣārtha individually: dharma in P5 (karma-yoga) and P7 (sva-dharma); kāma in P8 (treated as enemy of wisdom — the redirection rather than indulgence reading); mokṣa in P11. But the four-fold architecture itself is missing from the synthesis without this principle.

The corpus's notable artha near-absence: artha — wealth and worldly power as a legitimate aim — is the least attested of the four in the Gītā+Upanishads. The Vedāntic corpus near-disregards it: where the Gītā treats wealth, it is as the unworthy fruit one should not attach to (Ch. 2: "let right deeds be thy motive, not the fruit"); where the Upanishads treat it (most directly in Bṛh 2.4 / 4.5, where Maitreyī asks Yājñavalkya whether wealth makes immortal and is told it does not), it is to argue that artha is not a path to immortality. The corpus's emphasis falls heavily on the mokṣa-pole; the artha-pole is structurally minimized. This is itself an Atlas-relevant finding — a tradition that names four legitimate aims and underplays one — not a silent omission.

The catur-puruṣārtha architecture as background, not foreground: the system is systematized in the Dharmaśāstric tradition (Manusmṛti 2.224 and the Mahābhārata's puruṣārtha discussions) and assumed throughout the Gītā as background. The Gītā is structurally a puruṣārtha-architecture dialogue: Arjuna's framing-problem (P7) is precisely whether to pursue the gṛhastha-stage trivarga (dharma-as-warrior-duty, with its attendant artha and kāma) or to leap to mokṣa via renunciation. Krishna's reply integrates all four — fulfil dharma (act in your station) without attachment to artha or kāma (renounce the trivarga inwardly), as the path to mokṣa (the supervening fourth).

  • Covers: implicit-as-architecture across P5, P7 (dharma), P8 (kāma), P11 (mokṣa); explicit naming added structural-completeness · Bṛh-P2 (Maitreyī teaching as the corpus's sharpest artha-is-not-immortality argument) · Evidence: Gītā 2 (right-deeds-not-fruit framing of artha), Gītā 18 (the sannyāsa / tyāga dialogue — fulfilling station vs renouncing-fruits); Bṛh 2.4.5 (Maitreyī teaching — artha does not make immortal); Maitri 4.3 (āśrama-locked duty as the structural support for the catur-puruṣārtha arc) · Cross-tradition reference: Manusmṛti 2.224 systematizes the four; Flood, Introduction, ch. 2; Klostermaier, Survey, ch. 4 · [Architectural-level claim; not a single-verse anchor; the Gītā assumes the system as background]
  • Untranslatable: catur-puruṣārtha (the four aims); dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa; trivarga (the three worldly aims); apavarga (the transcendent aim)
  • Cross-tradition note: a primary Atlas finding — the four-aim architecture and the artha near-absence. The claim (life has multiple legitimate aims that should be ordered by a transcendent end) converges loosely with medieval Christian Aristotelian ethics (the finis ultimus and the hierarchy of natural goods under the supernatural end — Aquinas) and with Aristotelian eudaimonism's hierarchy of goods (the external goods / goods of the body / goods of the soul). The warrant is distinctively dharmic: the four aims are age-and-station-specific (each puruṣārtha has its proper season in the four-āśrama arc — see P7), and the supervening fourth (mokṣa) transforms rather than supersedes the first three (the karma-yoga of P5 is the dharma-aim performed as the mokṣa-aim). The near-absence of artha in the Vedāntic stream is a candidate WEAK-distinctive contribution: a tradition whose scripture names wealth-and-power as a legitimate aim and then largely refuses to develop the theme — sharply different from, e.g., the Hebrew Bible's robust engagement with material flourishing (Deuteronomy 28; Proverbs; Job; Ecclesiastes' wealth-and-vanity dialectic), or Confucianism's people-first-economics (Mencius I.A.5–7), or the Islamic maqāṣid's preservation-of-wealth pillar.

P16 — Pañca-kośa (पञ्चकोश): the five sheaths — the Taittirīya's layered Vedāntic anthropology

The Taittirīya Upanishad's Brahmānanda Vallī (2.1–5) gives the canonical Vedāntic anthropology of the human person: the inquirer is composed of five sheaths (pañca-kośa — see canonical taxonomies item 7), each "within" the previous, peeling back to the ātman-as-ānanda:

  • annamaya-kośa — the sheath that "consists of the essence of food" (the gross body, sustained by nutrition);
  • prāṇamaya-kośa — the sheath that "consists of breath" (the vital-energy body — prāṇa and its functions);
  • manomaya-kośa — the sheath that "consists of mind" (the affective-perceptual body — manas);
  • vijñānamaya-kośa — the sheath that "consists of understanding" (vijñāna — the discriminating-knowing body — buddhi-and-judgment);
  • ānandamaya-kośa — the sheath that "consists of bliss" (the innermost — ānanda-pervaded — opening directly onto Brahma-as-bliss).

Hume's verbatim: "From food, verily, creatures are produced… This, verily, is the person that consists of the essence of food. Verily, other than and within that one that consists of the essence of food is the self that consists of breath… is a self that consists of mind… is a self that consists of understanding (vijñāna-maya)… is a self that consists of bliss (ānanda-maya)." (Tait 2.1–5). The Bhṛgu Vallī (Tait 3.1–6) re-enacts the same progression as Bhṛgu's discovery through repeated tapas: Brahma is food → breath → mind → understanding → finally bliss ("He understood that Brahma is bliss (ānanda). For truly, beings here are born from bliss, when born they live by bliss, on deceasing they enter into bliss" — Tait 3.6).

Why standalone (and not P1-subsumed): the pañca-kośa is structurally distinct from P1 (the ātman=brahman identity-claim) because it is a method — peel back appearances layer by layer until only the bliss-Self remains — rather than a conclusion. It is one of the corpus's signature methodological structures alongside the neti neti apophatic seal (P12) and the antaryāmin's affirmative-immanence (P2): three Bṛhadāraṇyaka-and-Taittirīya methods for realizing the identity P1 asserts. Neti neti negates from outside ("not this"); the antaryāmin affirms from inside ("controls from within"); the pañca-kośa strips inward gradually (each sheath is "within" the prior). The three are not the same method, and a within-tradition reviewer would expect all three named.

Bhṛgu's parallel ascent: the same progression structures Bhṛgu's instruction by Varuṇa — five rounds of tapas, five successive identifications of Brahma — until the climactic "Brahma is bliss." The pedagogical structure (master sends pupil to discover, repeatedly; pupil returns with each level; master accepts each as a partial but not final discovery) is itself a distinctive Vedāntic teaching-form.

  • Covers: Tait-P3 (the five-sheath statement at Tait 2.1–5), Tait-P5 (Bhṛgu's ānanda climax at Tait 3.1–6) · also touches Maitri 6.30 (later post-Taittirīya elaborations of the kośa-language) · Evidence: Tait 2.1–5 (the canonical five-sheath enumeration); Tait 3.1–6 (Bhṛgu's repeated tapas and successive identification of Brahma with each kośa, culminating in ānanda); Tait 2.1 (satyaṃ jñānam anantam brahma — the formula the sheath-progression realizes) · Cross-tradition reference: Olivelle, Early Upaniṣads, intro on the Taittirīya; Flood, Introduction, ch. 4 · [cross-source: D=1 — Taittirīya-distinctive in the principal corpus; later Vedānta builds atop] (the kośa-language is later elaborated in Vedānta scholastic literature — Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtrabhāṣya and the Vivekacūḍāmaṇi — but the principal-Upanishad anchor is uniquely Taittirīya)
  • Untranslatable: pañca-kośa (the five sheaths); annamaya, prāṇamaya, manomaya, vijñānamaya, ānandamaya (the five sheath-names); ānanda (bliss — the climactic identification of Brahman); tapas (the discipline that effects Bhṛgu's progressive realization)
  • Cross-tradition note: a primary Atlas finding — WEAK-distinctive (no close cross-tradition twin) layered anthropology. The claim (the human person is a layered structure of selves with an innermost) has loose convergences with Origen's body-soul-spirit triad, with the Pauline soma-psyche-pneuma (1 Thess 5:23), with the Sufi nafs / qalb / rūḥ / sirr progression (graded levels of inner self in Sufi psychology), with the Confucian xin-and-qi psychology, and with the Vajrayāna five-skandhas elaborations. But the pañca-kośa's specific structure — five sheaths, each "within" the previous, culminating in bliss as the innermost identification of Brahman, with a methodological progression (peel back to discover) — has no exact cross-tradition twin. It is a prized Atlas jewel: the concrete five-layer anthropology + the bliss-as-innermost identification + the peel-back method together constitute a Vedāntic distinctive that is portable in claim (every contemplative tradition has some layered-self anthropology) but untranslatable in detail.

Convergence/divergence summary (Atlas preview)

Likely cross-tradition convergence (claim level) Likely divergence (warrant/foundation)
P14 equal vision / non-harm · P8 desire/lust-wrath-greed · P9 equanimity · P6 service over self-seeking (lokasaṃgraha) · P10 self-mastery & moderation · P13 devotion & grace · P12 wisdom over ritual / neti neti knowing-by-unknowing · P5 detached duty · P2 apophatic absolute · P15 catur-puruṣārtha / multiple-aims (claim widely shared) · P16 pañca-kośa / layered anthropology (claim loosely shared) P1 ātman=brahman (an immortal Self identical with the absolute) + the Advaita/Viśiṣṭādvaita/Dvaita warrant-divergence on the mahāvākyas · P11 mokṣa (release from rebirth, cyclical time) · P3 māyā & the guṇas · P13 avatāra & last-thought rebirth · P7 sva-dharma tied to varṇa + the renunciate-vs-householder āśrama-framing-problem · P2 antaryāmin / Inner Controller + the Advaita-vs-Viśiṣṭādvaita reading · P15 artha near-absence + the trivarga/apavarga supervening structure · P16 pañca-kośa specific five-sheath structure + bliss-as-innermost

These are hypotheses for the Atlas to test against other traditions via the claim-vs-warrant method, not settled findings — and they rest on a deliberately partial slice (Vedānta) of a vast tradition-family.

WEAK-distinctive jewels to preserve: ātman*=*brahman (P1) with its three-warrant Advaita/Viśiṣṭādvaita/Dvaita reading; antaryāmin (P2) as the canonical panentheist formula; neti neti (P12) as the canonical apophatic seal; the paired Bṛhadāraṇyaka method (P2 + P12 — affirm-and-deny); mokṣa (P11) as release from cyclical saṃsāra; the three-paths fan (P5/P12/P13) as Vedānta's structural plurality; catur-puruṣārtha (P15) as the four-aim architecture with the corpus's artha near-absence; pañca-kośa (P16) as the layered anthropology with bliss-as-innermost.

The three yogas (orientation note)

The Gītā's distinctive architecture offers complementary paths (yogas) to the one goal — karma-yoga (P5/P6, disciplined action), jñāna-yoga (P12, saving knowledge), bhakti-yoga (P13, loving devotion), with dhyāna (P10, meditation) as their common discipline. At the claim level, this is Gītā-internal — Chapters 12 and 18 explicitly hold both the formless and the personal paths as reaching Him, with a graded ladder for every capacity, and Chapter 18's surrender is the climactic note.

At the warrant level, the framing requires care. The popular formulation that the three paths are "not rival sects but adapted to different temperaments" — that all three are equally valid for different personality types — is a Vivekānanda-era neo-Vedānta synthesis (especially the 1893 Chicago lectures), not classical-Gītā. Krishna in Chapter 12 says bhakti is the easier path and the formless-impersonal is "with greater struggle" — there is a ranking, not just a flat plurality. Classical school readings rank the paths differently at the warrant level:

  • Advaita (Śaṅkara) treats jñāna as supreme — the direct recognition of tat tvam asi; karma-yoga is preparatory and bhakti is for those who can't yet do jñāna.
  • Viśiṣṭādvaita (Rāmānuja) and Dvaita (Madhva) treat bhakti as supreme — with karma-yoga preparatory and jñāna unable to reach the personal Lord alone.
  • Only a modern syncretist (Vivekānanda / Aurobindo / Krishna Prem) reading treats the three as equally valid for different temperaments.

This distillation does not adjudicate — the structural feature (Vedānta's distinctive plurality of valid routes) is itself a candidate WEAK-distinctive contribution to the union compass, but the neutral-plurality-by-temperament framing is a 19th–20th-century overlay and is named as such. A within-tradition Advaitin, Vaiṣṇava, or Mādhva reviewer would expect their school's ranking to be acknowledged at R1; this synthesis reports the Gītā-internal claim of complementarity while flagging the warrant-level ranking divergence.

The rāja-yoga as a fourth path (sometimes added in neo-Vedānta synthesis with reference to Patañjali's aṣṭāṅga-yoga) is correctly flagged in 00-methodology.md item 5 as a popular-synthesis overlay, not classical — and is explicitly out of scope (Patañjali's eight-limbed aṣṭāṅga-yoga is deferred under structural-completeness category 2 as outside the Gītā+Upanishads canon; see Quality block). The Maitri 6.18 six-limbed yoga at P10 is the within-corpus textual seam to the later eight-limbed system.

Quality

  • Source coverage: all 136 chapter/Upanishad principles (G1-P* … G18-P*; Isa-P*, Katha-P*, Kena-P*, Mund-P*, Mand-P*, Svet-P*, Ait-P*, Tait-P*, Prasna-P*, Chānd-P*, Bṛh-P*, Kau-P, Maitri-P**) across the 31 book-level files map to ≥1 core-principle principle.
  • Internal attestation: the cross-source layer marks eight D=2 nodes (load-bearing core) with 6–10 Upanishadic witnesses each after R3+ completion; the three formerly Gītā-distinctive nodes (bhakti, guṇa/māyā, concrete ethical praxis) remain D=2 within Vedānta (Maitri 4.3 further strengthens the svadharma attestation). Two D=1 contributions from prior pass (Maitri's six-limbed yoga listing — Maitri 6.18 — the direct bridge to Patañjali; and Kauṣītaki's prāṇa-as-Brahman — Kau 2.1–2 — the antaryāmin seen from inside). structural-completeness standalone additions: P16 pañca-kośa is Taittirīya-distinctive (D=1) within the principal-Upanishad corpus, building on the prior supplementary finding.
  • Traceability: each core-principle principle lists covered chapter/Upanishad principles + evidence (citation forms Gītā <ch>; Isa <n>; Katha <part>.<n>; Kena <part>.<n>; R3: Mund <khaṇḍa>.<n>, Mand <n>, Svet <adhyāya>.<n>, Ait <adhyāya>.<n>, Tait <vallī>.<n>, Prasna <praśna>.<n>; R3+: Chānd <prapāṭhaka>.<khaṇḍa>.<n>, Bṛh <adhyāya>.<brāhmaṇa>.<n>; R3+ completion: Kau <adhyāya>.<n>, Maitri <prapāṭhaka>.<n> — Arnold does not number Gītā verses, see README).
  • Standalone comprehension: each principle is stated to be intelligible to an outsider, with the frame-specific warrant flagged separately (claim-vs-warrant).
  • Scope: Vedānta, the Gītā + all thirteen principal Upanishads of Hume's set — the classical principal-Upanishad set is complete, representing two of the three legs of the prasthāna-trayī (the third leg — the Brahma-Sūtras — is deliberately deferred; see deferrals below). The Chāndogya and Bṛhadāraṇyaka files remain selections (the doctrinally densest sections — the canonical Vedāntic anchors of the four mahāvākyas, neti-neti, the antaryāmin, bhūmā, the city of Brahman in the heart, and the karma-mechanism); full distillations of those two longest texts remain a further staged extension.
  • Quotes: working text from the Gutenberg and Internet Archive editions, pending future char-for-char audit (the Phase-2 sample-deep audit verified 8/8 spot-checks verbatim against Arnold and Hume; no fabrications detected).
  • Translation note (Arnold flattens technical Sanskrit): Arnold's blank-verse Song Celestial (1885) is faithful in substance but flattens several technical distinctions Hume (1921, literal scholarly prose) preserves — dharma's polysemy (rendered variously as "duty," "right," "religion," "way"); karma / karma-bandha / karma-yoga / karman collapsed under "work" / "action" / "deeds"; brahman (the absolute) vs brāhmaṇa (the priestly-caste person) given overlapping "Brahman" spelling; bhakti / prapatti / śraddhā collapsed under "devotion" / "love" / "faith"; yoga flattened to "yoking" / "discipline" / "way." Hume preserves these more carefully (with his own slants — sometimes renders brahman as "Brahma," sometimes adds bracketed interpretive supplements). The principles-distillation prose preserves the Sanskrit technical distinctions in the untranslatables lists; readers of Arnold directly should know the flattening. (Future work: Müller SBE Upanishads for triangulating Hume vs Müller on the mahāvākyas and antaryāmin — see deferral below.)
  • Structural-completeness (structural-completeness, 2026-05-30): PASS (9/9 canonical taxonomies from 00-methodology.md covered + the additional Müller SBE Future work).
    • Standalone principles: 1. Tri-guṇa — already P3 (the three strands sattva/rajas/tamas); 2. Tri-mārga / Tri-yoga — already P5/P12/P13 (the three paths; framing tightened this pass to flag the Vivekānanda-synthesis warrant); 3. Catur-puruṣārtha — new P15 (the four-aim architecture; the corpus's artha near-absence explicitly named as an Atlas-relevant finding); 4. Pañca-kośa — new P16 (the five-sheath layered anthropology; explicitly named as a method distinct from P1's identity-claim).
    • Sub-elements (clearly anchored, with structural argument per Learning 6): Catur-mahāvākya — sub-element of P1 because the four "great sayings" are the canonical scriptural articulations of P1's ātman=brahman identity-claim; the tetrad-as-named-set is itself a post-Śaṅkara Advaita scholastic synthesis; all four anchors are verified verbatim within-corpus and named in P1's expanded prose with the Advaita/Viśiṣṭādvaita/Dvaita warrant-divergence flagged. · Antaryāmin (Bṛh 3.7) — sub-element of P2 because the Inner Controller is the canonical Bṛhadāraṇyaka articulation of the One that pervades while remaining other-than each thing; explicitly named in P2's expanded prose with the Advaita-vs-Viśiṣṭādvaita reading divergence flagged. · Neti neti (Bṛh 4.4.22 / 2.3.6) — sub-element of P12 because it is the canonical Upanishadic articulation of knowledge-by-negation (the apophatic method P12 names); explicitly named in P12's expanded prose. The antaryāmin + neti neti pair* is the canonical Bṛhadāraṇyaka method — affirm-and-deny — cross-referenced explicitly between P2 and P12 prose. · Catur-āśrama / renunciate-vs-householder framing-problem — sub-element of P7 because the four-stage life-arc is Dharmaśāstric (outside textual scope) but its framing-problem (act in station vs renounce) is the Gītā's structural problem-statement to which Krishna's karma-yoga (P5) is the signature reply; explicitly named in P7's expanded prose with Maitri 4.3 within-corpus anchor. · Prasthāna-trayī (two-of-three-legs methodological status) — named in Scope/orientation prose because a within-tradition reviewer would expect the corpus's two-of-three position acknowledged (Gītā + Upanishads in; Brahma-Sūtras deferred — see below).
    • Deferrals (explicit, with category + criterion per Learning 6):
      • (a) Aṣṭāṅga-yoga (Patañjali's eight limbs — Yoga Sūtra 2.29) — deferred under category 2 (out of textual focus): the locus classicus is the Yoga Sūtra (c. 2nd–4th c. CE) outside this corpus's named two-text canon (Gītā + Upanishads). The six-limbed proto-form at Maitri 6.18 (prāṇāyāma / pratyāhāra / dhyāna / dhāraṇā / tarka / samādhi) IS within-corpus and is captured at P10 as the textual seam to the later eight-limbed system. Cited in Flood, Introduction, ch. 5; Klostermaier, Survey, ch. 14. Future work: not applicable as same-scope upgrade; if added, would be a scope expansion ("yoga-philosophy" alongside "vedānta-philosophy").
      • (b) Brahma-Sūtras (the third leg of the prasthāna-trayī) — deferred under category 2 (out of textual focus): deliberately outside the corpus's named two-text scope (Gītā + principal Upanishads). The Brahma-Sūtras are constitutively commentarial (~555 systematic aphorisms compressing Upanishadic doctrine), and adding them would change the distillation's character from "primary scriptural texts" to "primary + scholastic compression." Every classical Vedāntic school commented upon them (Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtrabhāṣya; Rāmānuja's Śrībhāṣya; Madhva's Brahmasūtrabhāṣya). Cited in Flood, Introduction, ch. 10. Future work: not applicable as same-scope upgrade; if added, would be a scope expansion ("scholastic Vedānta" alongside "scriptural Vedānta"). Thibaut's Brahma-Sūtras translation is in PD (SBE 34, 38, 48) and would be accessible via archive.org if scope is widened.
      • (c) Müller SBE Upanishads (the suggested ideal-edition third independent witness for the principal Upanishads, alongside Hume and Paramananda) — deferred under category 1 (PD source genuinely unavailable — access blocked): Müller SBE 1 & 15 (1879 / 1884) are PD but the canonical mirror at sacred-texts.com is behind a Cloudflare JavaScript challenge that returns a challenge page to curl; the Müller SBE Upanishad volumes were not located as clean Project Gutenberg plain-text files by ID probing. supplementary supplementary+ used Hume (1921) and Paramananda (1919) as the verifiable alternatives — Hume more literal-scholarly, Paramananda Advaita-leaning within-tradition. The Müller would be the "third independent witness" useful for triangulation. Future work: retry alternate access paths — (i) archive.org direct-PDF or djvu OCR; (ii) Internet Sacred Text Archive mirror sites; (iii) Google Books PD-snippet reconstruction; (iv) institutional library digital copies (HathiTrust, Internet Archive scholar). Once accessible, substitute Müller SBE for spot-checks on the mahāvākyas (P1) and the antaryāmin (P2) to triangulate Hume + Paramananda + Müller as three independent witnesses. Plausible alternative R4 path: a within-tradition R1 reviewer with institutional access (Oxford / Harvard / SOAS) could perform the triangulation in a few hours.
    • Cross-tradition consistency: the catur-puruṣārtha four-aim architecture (P15) is comparable to the Aristotelian-Aquinas finis ultimus hierarchy and (more loosely) to the Islamic maqāṣid al-sharīʿa (the protected goods) — to be re-attested as cross-tradition "multiple-aims architecture" in structural-completeness Phase 4. The pañca-kośa layered anthropology (P16) is comparable to the Pauline soma-psyche-pneuma, the Sufi nafs / qalb / rūḥ / sirr progression, the Origenist body-soul-spirit, and the Vajrayāna pañca-skandha — to be re-attested as cross-tradition "layered anthropology" theme. The antaryāmin-affirmation + neti-neti-apophasis paired Bṛhadāraṇyaka method strengthens the Atlas R5 apophasis-as-form-convergence finding (the neti pole) with a counterbalancing affirmative-immanence pole worth flagging as its complement.