Yajnavalkya's wife and philosophical equal, remembered for choosing spiritual knowledge over material wealth when he offered to divide his property between his two wives.
उपनिषद काल · Upanishadic era
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad recounts Yajnavalkya, preparing to renounce worldly life, offering to settle his estate between Maitreyi and his other wife, Katyayani; Maitreyi instead asked whether wealth could make her immortal, and on hearing it could not, asked to be taught what would.
Yajnavalkya's response to her — that nothing is dear for its own sake, but only for the sake of the Self within it — is delivered as a teaching to her directly, making Maitreyi both audience and catalyst for one of the Upanishads' central philosophical passages.