Madhu Kanda. Adhyaya 2, Brahmana 4. Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi: for the sake of the Self
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Each mantra is given four ways: the Sanskrit in its Devanagari script, the same sounds in Roman letters, an English translation set in our own voice, and then the line once more in plain words, for a first and unhurried reading.
Not every passage is opened to the same depth. A few central mantras carry the full cross-school commentary, where the schools are set side by side. The rest are kept here whole and faithful, set in their place but not expounded, so the book stays entire and nothing is dropped for being thought minor.
Where the schools read a line differently, the difference is kept open. None is crowned and none is corrected. Each is met on its own terms, and where they contradict, the contradiction is left standing for you to sit with.
Yajnavalkya prepares to go forth
Maitreyi, said Yajnavalkya, I am about to go forth from this householder's life. Come, let me make a settlement between you and Katyayani.
Yajnavalkya said, 'Maitreyi, I am about to leave the household life and go forth as a renouncer. Let me settle what I have between you and my other wife, Katyayani.'
In the commentaries
Sankara reads the leave-taking as the very setting of knowledge. The dividing of the estate frames renunciation not as mere withdrawal but as the ground on which Self-knowledge is given, and Maitreyi as the qualified seeker being drawn in.