823.  In this verse the speaker again points out the similarity between dreamless sleep and Emancipation.  In both swakarmapratyayah Gunah is discarded.  Gunah, as explained by Nilakantha, means here the whole range of subjective and objective existences from Consciousness to gross material objects, swakarmapratyayah means karmahetu kavirbhava, i.e., having acts for the cause of their manifestation; this refers to the theory of rebirth on account of past acts.

824.  The sense of the verse is this:  all creatures are perceived to exist.  That existence is due to the well-known cause constituted by Avidya and desire and acts.  They exist also in such a way as to display a union between the body and Soul.  For all common purposes of life We treat creatures that we perceive to be really existing.  The question then that arises is—­which (the body or the Soul) is destructible?—­We cannot answer this question in any way we like, like for swaswato va katham uchcchedavan, bhavet (i.e., how can the Soul, Which is said by the learned to be Eternal, be regarded as destructible?) Vartamaneshu should be treated as, Laukikavyavareshu.  Uchcchedah is, of course, equivalent to Uchcchedavan.

825. i.e., the gross body disappears in the subtile; the subtile into the karana (potential) form of existence; and this last into the Supreme Soul.

826.  Merit and sin, and with them their effects in the form of happiness and misery both here and hereafter, are said to be destroyed when men become unattached to everything and practise the religion of abstention or nivritti.  The paraphrase of the second line is asaktah alepamakasam asthaya mahati alingameva pacyanti.  Alepamakasam asthaya is explained by the commentator as Sagunam Brahma asthaya.

827.  Urnanabha is generic term for all worms that weave threads from within their bellies.  It does not always mean the spider.  Here, it implies a silk-worm.  The analogy then becomes complete.

828.  Nipatatyasaktah is wrongly rendered by the Burdwan translator.  K.P.  Singha gives the sense correctly but takes nipatali for utpatati.

829.  Samudayah is explained by the commentator as equivalent to hetu.

830.  Giving food and clothes to the poor and needy in times of scarcity is referred to.

831.  The reading I adopt is Vrataluvdhah.  If, however, the Bengal reading vrataluplah be adopted, the meaning would be “such men are deceived by their vows,” the sense being that though acquiring heaven and the other objects of their desire, yet they fall down upon exhaustion of their merit and never attain to what is permanent, viz., emancipation, which is attainable by following the religion of nivritti only.

832.  The object of Bhishma’s two answers is to show that the giving of pain to others (sacrificing animals) is censurable, and the giving of pain to one’s own self is equally censurable.

833.  Existence comes into being and ceases.  Non-existence also comes into being and ceases.  This is the grammatical construction.  The words, of course, imply only the appearance and disappearance of all kinds of phenomena.