The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,886 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3.

The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,886 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3.

471.  The Burdwan translator, misled by the particle nah, supposes that this verse contains an injunction against the spoliation of a Sudra.  The fact is, the nah here is equal to ‘ours’.

472.  Who has fasted for three whole days.

473.  Aswastanavidhana is the rule of providing only for today without thinking of the morrow.

474.  The sense, of course, is that if a Brahmana starves, that is due to the king having neglected his duty of providing for him.

475.  I follow Nilakantha in rendering abrahmanam manyamanah.  It may also mean ‘regarding himself to be a fallen Brahmana (for the time being)’.

476.  It should be noted that the word foeticide used in such texts frequently means all sins that are regarded as equivalent to foeticide.  Hence, killing a Brahmana is foeticide, etc.

477.  There is a material difference of reading in this verse.  Following the Bengal texts, the above version is given.  The Bombay text runs as follows:  ’upon his body being burnt therewith, or by death, he becomes cleansed.’  The Bombay text seems to be vicious.  Drinking is regarded as one of the five heinous sins.  The severer injunction contained in the Bengal texts seems therefore, to be the correct reading.

478.  The true reading is nigacchati and not niyacchati.  The Burdwan translator has misunderstood the word papam in this verse.

479.  Nilakantha correctly explains the connection of Susamsitah.

480.  Nilakantha explains that the question of Nakula excited the heart of Bhishma and caused a flow of blood through his wounds.  Hence Bhishma compares himself to a hill of red-chalk.

481.  Durvarani, Durvaradini, Durvachadini, are some of the readings of the first line.

482.  Literally, family or clan; here origin.

483.  The second line of 19 is unintelligible.

484.  Taddhitwa is tat hi twa.  Nilakantha thinks that twa here is twam.

485.  In the Bengal texts, 41 is made a triplet, and 42 is made to consist of a single line; 42 is represented as Vaisampayana’s speech.  This is evidently an error; 41 a couplet. 42 also is so.  Rajna etc., refer to Bhima.  K.P.  Singha avoids the error; the Burdwan translator, as usual, makes a mess of 41 by taking it to be a triplet.

486.  There can be very little doubt that the second line has a distinct reference to the principal article of faith in Buddhism.  Emancipation here is identified with Extinction or Annihilation.  The word used is Nirvana.  The advice given is abstention from attachments of every kind.  These portions of the Santi are either interpolations, or were written after the spread of Buddhism.

487.  The doctrine set forth in 48 is the doctrine of either Universal Necessity as expounded by Leibnitz, or that of Occasional Causes of the Cartesian school.  In fact, all the theories about the government of the universe are strangely jumbled together here.

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The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.