They dwelt there as pupils for thirty-two years. Then Pragâpati asked them: 'For what purpose have you both dwelt here?' They replied: 'A saying of yours is being repeated, viz. "the Self which is free from sin, free from old age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst, which desires nothing but what it ought to desire, and imagines nothing but what it ought to imagine, that it is which we must search out, that it is which we must try to understand. He who has searched out that Self and understands it, obtains all worlds and all desires." Now we both have dwelt here because we wish for that Self.' Pragâpati said to them: 'The person that is seen in the eye, that is the Self. This is what I have said. This is the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahman.' They asked: 'Sir, he who is perceived in the water, and he who is perceived in a mirror, who is he?' He replied: 'He himself indeed is seen in all these.'

In plain words: Indra and Virochana lived with Prajapati as students for thirty-two years. When he asked why they came, they repeated his teaching about the Self and said they wanted it. Prajapati told them that the person seen in the eye is the Self, deathless and fearless. When they asked about the person seen in water or a mirror, he said it is the same one seen in all of them.