Maitreyī
The Ṛṣikās · Ṛṣis and Ṛṣikās
Yājñavalkya's wife, who spoke of Brahman: offered a share of his wealth when he left home, she asked whether the whole earth would make her immortal, and received his teaching of the Self instead.
Maitreyī was the wife of the sage Yājñavalkya, and one who spoke of Brahman, the one reality behind all things. When he was about to leave his home and offered to divide his wealth between her and his other wife, she asked whether the whole earth full of riches would make her immortal. Told that it would not, she asked him for the one thing that would. What he taught her before he left is kept in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, one of the teachings on the Self that close the Vedas, the ancient sacred knowledge of the brahmins.