1494.  The last half of the last line may be taken as applying to Usanas.

1495.  The vriddhim that Mahadeva saw could not be his own, for the greatest cannot be greater.  The commentator, therefore, is right in holding that vriddhim refers to the greatness of Usanas within Mahadeva’s stomach.

1496.  The sa refers to Usanas and not to Mahadeva, as the commentator rightly points out.

1497. i.e., the religions of all the orders and all the modes of life.

1498.  The scriptural injunctions are that one should sacrifice in honour of the gods, pour libations on the sacred fire, make gifts etc, In these exists Righteousness.

1499.  The grammar of the third line is a little involved.  Tasmin refers to Dharme.  Supply nisthavantah after tasmin.  The sense, of course, is that believing in the efficacy of righteousness, people of all modes of life accomplish the duties of their respective modes.

1500.  The sinful become intermediate animals.  The virtuous attain to heaven.  They that are both virtuous and sinful attain to the status of humanity.  They that acquire Knowledge become Emancipated.

1501.  Destiny here means the result of the acts of past lives.

1502.  The reading I adopt is jatikritam karma etc.  Hence, this Verse also represents the arguments of the sceptic or the Charvakas.  The four kinds of acts are Nitya, Naimittika, Kamya, and Nishiddha.  If, however, for ‘jatikritam karma, etc.,’ the reading yantyakritam karma be adopted, the meaning would be—­’In one’s next life one does not meet with fruits that are not the results of one’s acts of past life.  This must be so, for the opposite opinion would imply the destruction of acts and their consequences.  Then again, such an opinion would conflict with the received opinion of mankind, for men, when they obtain the fruits of any act, always recollect the four kinds of acts of a past life for explaining the accession of those fruits.

1503.  Verses 12 to 14 represent the theory of the sceptic, and I have rendered them as such.  Only by reading verse 13 as ’yantyakritam karma, etc.,’ the commentator points out that it may be taken as an observation of Parasara himself.  As regards verse 15, it represents the ipse dixit of the speaker.  He does not think that the sceptic is at all entitled to a reply.  It is scarcely necessary to say that the Burdwan translator makes a thorough mess of these verses.  K.P.  Singha gives the substance correctly.

1504.  The commentator shows that this is an answer to the sceptic’s averment about Nature being the cause of everything.  Fire is hot-by nature, therefore, it does not become hot at one time, cold at another, and lukewarm at another time.  One becomes either wholly happy or wholly unhappy or wholly happy and unhappy at the same time.  Man’s nature should not be such.  The difference of state is produced by difference of causes.