1246.  ‘One who has cast off his upper garment’ is one who clothes himself very scantily only for the sake of decency and not for splendour.

1247.  Dwandwarama very likely means here the joys of wedded couples and not ‘the pleasures derived from pairs of opposites’.  The sense seems to be this that man is a Brahmana who, without marrying succeeds in enjoying singly all the felicity that attaches to married life.

1248.  In reality all things are, of course, Brahma.  Their external aspects are only transformations.  The end of all creatures is death and rebirth till absorption takes place into Brahma by means of Yoga.

1249.  The original is very terse.  I have expanded it, following the commentator.  Dana-yajna kriya phalam is chitta suddhi of purity or heart; antarena is equivalent to vina; anujananti governs Brahmanyam understood.  Anyat phalam in the second line implies heaven and its joys (which satisfy ordinary men).  The practice anu before jananti is taken to imply gurum anu, i.e., following the instructions of preceptors.’

1250.  These three verses run together and are extremely abstruse.  There can be no doubt that the commentator is right.  The construction is this:  Yam sadacharam asritya samsritanam swakarmabhih (sahitam) tapah ghoratwam agatam, tam (sadacharam) puranam puranam saswatam dhruvam dharmeshu cha sutritamkitichit charitum asaknuvantah phalavanti vyushtimanti dhruvam cha karmani (mudah) vigunani, etc., pasyanti.  The second line of 36 stands by itself as an explanatory sentence referring to some of the characteristics of the sadachara that is spoken of.  Samsritanam, refers to men observing the different modes of life; ghoratwam agatam is samsarandhakaranasakam bhavati.  What is meant by this is that the penances of such men, along with the duties they are called upon to observe by the particular mode of life they follow, become a terrible weapon, in consequence of their sadacharah, for destroying the evils of worldliness.  The sadacharah spoken of here is nishkamadharmah.  The latter is no new-fangled theory of men of learning but is puranam saswatam, and dhruvam.  The phalavanti vyushtimanti, and dhruva karmani which fools regard to be vigyunani and anaikatitikani are, of course, those acts which are included within the word ‘Yoga.’  In brief, the speaker, in these three verses, wishes to inculcate that wise men, whatever their mode of life, observe its duties.  But by virtue of the nishkama dharma they follow, they convert those duties and their penances into efficient means for dispelling the darkness of ignorance.  Fools, on the other hand, unable to practise that nishkama dharma, look upon it and Yoga itself as fruitless and valueless although the rewards these confer are visible.

1251.  The sciences that have disputation only for their foremost object, are, according to the commentator, the sciences of the Lokayatikas, the Saughatas (or Buddhists), the Kapalikas, etc.  The other sciences based on Logic that are included within the word Agama are the two Mimamsas, Sankhya, and Patanjala.