598.  The Hindu moralist, in this verse, declares the same high morality that Christ himself preached.  Merit or sin, according to him, does not depend on the overt act alone.  Both depend on the mind.  Hence the injunction against even mentally harming others.

599.  The sense seems to be that if one succeeds in ascertaining the ordinances about virtue or Piety, but if the mind be sinful, no associate can be of any help.  The mind alone is the cause of virtue and piety.

600.  Adhyatma is anything that depends on the mind.  Here it is, as explained by the commentator, used for yoga-dharma as depending upon or as an attribute of the mind.  Generally speaking, all speculations on the character of the mind and its relations with external objects are included in the word Adhyatma.

601.  After Bhrigu’s discourse to Bharadwaja this question may seem to be a repetition.  The commentator explains that it arises from the declaration of Bhishma that Righteousness is a property of the mind, and is, besides, the root of everything. (V 31, sec. 193, ante).  Hence the enquiry about Adhyatma as also about the origin of all things.

602.  The word rendering ‘perceptions’ is Vijnanani.  ‘Cognitions’ would perhaps, be better.

603.  Generally, in Hindu philosophy, particularly of the Vedanta school, a distinction is conceived between the mind, the understanding, and the soul.  The mind is the seat or source of all feelings and emotions as also all our perceptions, or those which are called cognitions in the Kantian school, including Comparison which (in the Kantian school) is called the Vernuft or Reason.  This last is called the Understanding or buddhi.  The soul is regarded as something distinct from both the body and the mind.  It is the Being to whom the body and the mind belong.  It is represented as inactive, and as the all-seeing witness within the physical frame.  It is a portion of the Supreme Soul.

604.  Goodness includes all the higher moral qualities of man.  Passion means love, affection, and other emotions that appertain to worldly objects.  Darkness means anger, lust, and such other mischievous propensities.

605.  I follow Nilakantha in his grammatical exposition of this verse.  The meaning, however, is scarcely clear.  The identity of the Understanding or intelligence with the senses and the mind may be allowed so far as the action of the three qualities in leading all of them to worldly attachments is concerned.  But what is meant by the identity of the Understanding with all the objects it comprehends?  Does Bhishma preach Idealism here?  If nothing exists except as it exists in the Understanding, then, of course, with the extinction of the Understanding, all things would come to an end.

606.  Brown and other followers of Reid, whether they understood Reid or not, regarded all the perceptions as only particular modifications of the mind.  They denied the objective existence of the world.