1528.  This chief of the Asura passions was Mahamoha or great Heedlessness.  The word Devas here is taken to mean the senses.  Of course, if verse 16 be not taken metaphorically, then may Devas be taken in its ordinary sense of the deities.

1529.  The genius of the two languages being different, it is very difficult to render the phraseology of the first line.  Literally rendered, the line would read ’they remain or stay on those acts, and establish them.’  Besides being unidiomatic, the sentence would be unmeaning.  ‘To stay or remain on any act’ is to adhere to it.  ’To establish it’ is to regard it as a precedent and cause it to be regarded by others as a precedent.

1530.  Samsiddhadhigamam is explained by the commentator thus:  Samsiddhah is nityasiddah, i.e., atman; tadadhigamam is atmajnanam.

1531.  The very gods are subject to prosperity and adversity, and their effects of loves and hates.  There is no mode of life in which these may not be found.

1532.  After sukham supply bhavati or some such verb.  Tyajatam stands by itself and refers to kamya karma, meaning they that abstain from such acts as are not nitya but as are only kamya or optional.

1533.  The sense is that those who betake themselves to penances as the consequence of despair, are many.  Those men, however, are very rare who adopt penances, being at once impressed that the happiness of domesticity is unreal and ends in misery.

1534. i.e., their penances of past lives.

1535.  I am not sure that I have correctly understood the second line of this verse.  Akrita-karmanam is explained by the commentator as anut-pannatattwajnanam and upabhogavarityagah is Renunciation or Vairagyam phalani has tapasah understood before it.  But why phalani instead of phalam?

1536.  The second line of this verse concludes the argument.  The tasmat has reference to all the statements before, and not to only the first line of 26.  The statement in the second line is the same as the second line of verse 13 above.

1537.  I expand the second line a little for making it intelligible.

1538.  By ‘stainless penances’ is meant nishkamam tapah or penances undertaken without desire of fruit.

1539.  Tyaktwa has nishkalmasham tapah understood after it.  The order of the words is Phalarthi apriyani etc., vishyatmakam tat phalam prapnoti.  The distinction between nishkamam and sakamam tapah is this; through the former one attains to happiness.  Even the earthly wealth he earns becomes fraught with happiness; through the latter, however, one meets with diverse kinds of sorrow resulting from the earthly possessions he succeeds in obtaining.

1540.  The grammar of the first line is this:  Dharme tapasi dane cha (sati avihitakarme) vidhitsa, etc.  If vidhitsa be taken with ‘dharma, etc.,’ the verse would be unmeaning.

1541.  The first line is difficult to construe.  Tatah means ’inconsequence of the pain that attends the gratification of the senses.’  Sarvasya refers to vivekinah; jyayase phalartham is ’for the sake of the highest fruit,’ which, of course, is Emancipation.  Gunah is ‘same’, ‘dama, etc.’