In Adhyaya 3 Brahmana 9 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the sage Yagnavalkya tells Vidagdha Sakalya what the eleven Rudras are associated with:
katame rudrā iti ।
daśeme puruṣe prāṇā
ātmaikādaśas
te yadā'smāccharīrānmartyādutkrāmanty
atha rodayanti
tadyadrodayanti
tasmādrudrā iti ॥[Vidagdha Sakalya] asked: 'Who are the Rudras?'
Yâgñavalkya replied: 'These ten vital breaths (prânas, the senses, i.e. the five gñânendriyas, and the five karmendriyas), and Âtman as the eleventh. When they depart from this mortal body, they make us cry (rodayanti), and because they make us cry, they are called Rudras.'
Now this verse contains the word Atma, but all the commentators on the Brahma Sutras seem to agree that the word Atma here does not refer to the thing we usually denote by the word Atma, namely the soul or self. Instead, they say it refers to something else, like the Manas or mind or the Buddhi or intelligence. Here is what Adi Shankaracharya says in his Brahma Sutra Bhashya:
By the word Âtman we have to understand the internal organ, on account of its ruling over the organs.
And here is what Ramanujacharya says in his Sri Bhashya:
The organs are not seven only, but eleven, since the hands and the rest also contribute towards the experience and fruition of that which abides in the body, i.e. the soul, and have their separate offices, such as seizing, and so on. Hence it is not so, i.e. it must not be thought that the hands and the rest are not organs. Buddhi, ahankâra and kitta, on the other hand, are(not independent organs but) mere designations of the manas, according as the latter is engaged in the functions of deciding (adhyavasâya), or misconception (abhimâna, or thinking (kintâ). The organs therefore are eleven. From this it follows that in the passage 'Ten are these prânas in man, and Âtman is the eleventh'(Bri. Up. II, 4, ii), the word Âtman denotes the manas.
And here is what Madhvacharya says in his Brahma Sutra Bhashya:
The ten pranas are the ten sons of Vayu, while atma, the eleventh, is Buddhi or rather the presiding deity of Buddhi, namely, Brihaspati.
And for good measure, Nimbarka (the Kumara Vaishnava commentator), Srikantha Shivacharya (the Shaiva Siddhanta commentator whom I discuss here), and Baladeva Vidyabhushana (the Gaudiya Vaishnava commentator) also agree on this point; see here. This seems to be a rare case of unanimous agreement among all commentators on the Brahma Sutras! (I discuss two other such cases here and here).
So my question is, why is it that all commentators agree that the word "Atma" here does not refer to the actual Atma, but rather to the Manas or Buddhi? What is there in the text indicates that?
Also, is there anyone at all who does interpret this verse as referring to the actual Atma, whether the Jivatma or Paramatma?