1780.  Uparyupari implies gradual superiority.  If one becomes wealthy, one desires to be a councillor; if a councillor, one wishes to be prime minister; and so on.  The sense of the verse is that man’s desire to rise is insatiable.

1781.  The reading I prefer is asathah and not sathah.  If the latter reading be kept, it would mean of both descriptions are seen to pay court to the wicked.

1782.  Avavandhah is low attachments, implying those that appertain to the body.  In fact, the acquisition of the body itself is such an attachment.  What is said here is that Jiva who has become enlightened becomes freed from the obligation of rebirth or contact with body once more.

1783.  The mass of effulgence constituting the Sun is nothing else than Brahma.  Brahma is pure effulgence.  Savitri-mandala-madhyavartir-Narayanah does not mean a deity with a physical form in the midst of the solar effulgence but incorporeal and universal Brahma.  That effulgence is adored in the Gayatri.

1784.  The commentator takes Shomah to mean Shomagath Jivah.  He does not explain the rest of the verse.  The grammatical construction presents no difficulty.  If, Shomah be taken in the sense in which the Commentator explains it, the meaning would be this.  He who enters the solar effulgence has not to undergo any change, unlike Shomah and the deities who have to undergo changes, for they fall down upon the exhaustion of their merit and re-ascend when they once more acquire merit.  Both the vernacular translators have made a mess of the verse.  The fact is, there are two paths, archiradi-margah and dhumadi-margah.  They who go by the former, reach Brahma and have never to return.  While they who go by the latter way, enjoy felicity for some time and then come back.

1785.  Here, the words Sun and Moon are indicative of the two different paths mentioned in the note immediately before.

1786.  What Suka says here is that he would attain to universal Brahma and thus identify himself with all things.

1787.  Jahasa hasam is an instance in Sanskrit of the cognate government of neuter verbs.

1788.  The Rishis knew that the height of the atmosphere is not interminable.

1789.  In this Section, Bhishma recites to Yudhishthira the fact of Suka’s departure from this world, and Vyasa’s grief at that occurrence.  He speaks of the fact as one that had been related to him bygone times by both Narada and Vyasa himself.  It is evident from this that the Suka who recited the Srimad Bhagavat to Parikshit, the grandson of Arjuna, could not possibly be the Suka who was Vyasa’s son.

1790.  What Bhishma says here is that without faith this subject is incapable of being understood.

1791.  This is a triplet.  The last word of the third line, viz., Swayambhuvah refers to Krishnah, but it has no special meaning.  It is an adjective used more for the sake of measure than for anything else.