977.  ‘Fixed senses,’ i.e., when the senses are fixed on the mind and the mind on the understanding.  Ajaram is immutable or unchanging, or that in which there is no change for the worse (or for the better).  By subtility is indicated the incapacity of being apprehended, and by mahattaram is meant infinity.

978.  The anu anudrisya is explained as Guruvachanamanu.  Thus seems to be the true meaning, otherwise avekshya would be pleonastic, abhutagatim is bhutasamplavaparyantam, i.e., till the destruction of all beings.  Imam is sastraprasiddham.

979.  The Vedas proclaim the efficacy of both acts and knowledge.  Acts are not laid down for those that have knowledge.

980.  Subhashita is explained by the commentator as ayam tu paramo dharma yat yogena atmadarsanam.

981.  Na vartate does not mean annihilated but, as the commentator explains, aham asmi iti na jana atmanam.

982.  Manasena karmana is explained by the commentator as sankalpena.

983.  The meaning is this:  the man of acts is like the new-born moon, i.e., subject to growth and decay.

984.  This has been explained in a previous section.

985.  The soul resides in the body without partaking of any of the attributes of the body.  It is, therefore, likened to a drop of water on a lotus leaf, which, though on the leaf, is not yet attached to it, in so much that it may go off without at all soaking or drenching any part of the leaf.  Yogajitatmakam is yogena jito niruddha atma chittam yena tam, as explained by the commentator.

986.  Literally, ’Tamas and Rajas and Sattwa have the attribute of Jiva for their essence.’  The particular attribute of Jiva here referred to is the Jnanamaya kosha.  Jiva, again, is all accident of the Soul.  The Soul comes from the Supreme Soul.  Thus the chain of existence is traced to the Supreme Soul.  In verse 20 again it is said that the body, which by itself is inanimate, when it exists with the Soul, is an accident of Jiva as uninvested with attributes.

987.  I follow Nilakantha substantially in his interpretation of this verse.  Two kinds of creation are here referred to as those of which Vyasa has spoken in the previous Sections.  The first is Ksharat prabhriti yah sargah, meaning that creation which consists of the four and twenty entities commencing with Kshara or Prakriti.  The other creation, consisting of the senses with their objects, represents buddhaiswarya or the puissance of the buddhi, these being all buddhikalpitah.  This second creation is also atisargah which means, according to the commentator, utkrishtah and which is also pradhanah or foremost, the reason being bandhakatwam or its power to bind all individuals.  I take atisargah to mean ‘derivative creation,’ the second kind of creation being derived from or based upon the other, or (as I have put it in the text) transcends or overlies the other.

988.  It is explained in previous sections how the course of righteousness is regulated by the character of the particular Yuga that sets in.