1048.  The last word in the first line is not prabodhita but aprabodhita.

1049.  In the original, the word atman is used in various senses.  Sometimes it stands for the Jiva-soul, sometimes for the Supreme Soul, sometimes for essence or the principal portion of anything, sometimes for one’s own self, and sometimes even for the person or body.  It is not difficult to distinguish in which sense the word is used in what place.

1050.  Vela is tide or current.  The Understanding, although it exists with the three states of Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas, can yet transcend them by Yoga.  The ordinary and extraordinary states of the understanding are spoken of in this verse.

1051.  The Bengal texts make this a verse of one line.  In the Bombay text, verse 9 is made a triplet, so that this line is included in it.  Medhyani is explained as medha, rupadi jnanam, tatra tani.

1052.  If I have understood this verse correctly, the theory of perception laid down is a sort of idealism which has not, perhaps, its counterpart in European metaphysics.  The senses are first said to be only modifications of the understanding.  The mind also is only a modification of the same.  A particular sense, say the eye, becomes subservient to the understanding at a particular moment.  As soon as this happens, the understanding, though in reality it is only the eye, becomes united with the eye, and entering the mind raises an image there, the consequence of which is that that image is said to be seen.  External world there is, of course, as independent of mind and understanding.  That which is called a tree is only an idea or image created in the mind by the understanding with the aid of the sense of vision.

1053.  The speaker here combats the theory that the qualities of Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas inhere to the objects themselves of the senses.  His own view is that they inhere to the Mind, the Understanding, and Consciousness.  The qualities may be seen to exist with objects, but in reality they follow objects in consequence of their permanent connection with the mind, the understanding, and consciousness which have agency in the production of objects.  The commentator cites the instance of a wife’s beautiful and symmetrical limbs.  These excite pleasure in the husband, envy in a co-wife, and desire (mixed with pain at its not being gratified) in a weak-hearted gazer.  All the while the limbs remain unchanged.  Then again, the husband is not always pleased with them, nor is the co-wife always filled with envy at their sight, nor is the gazer always agitated.  Like the spokes of a wheel which are attached to the circumference and which move with circumference, the qualities of Sattwa, etc., attached to the mind, understanding and consciousness, move along with them, i.e., follow those objects in the production of which the mind, etc., are causes.

1054.  This version of verse is offered tentatively.  I give the substance without following the exact order of the original.  Compare this verse with 42 of section 194 ante.