441. i.e., for my instructions.
442. So great was the repugnance felt for the slayer of a Brahmana that to even talk with him was regarded a sin. To instruct such a man in the truths of the Vedas and of morality was to desecrate religion itself.
443. The version of 5 is offered tentatively. That a person possessed of affluence should become charitable is not wonderful. An ascetic, again, is very unwilling to exercise his power. (Witness Agastya's unwillingness to create wealth for gratifying his spouse.) What is meant by these two persons not living at a distance from each other is that the same cause which makes an affluent person charitable operates to make an ascetic careful of the kind of wealth he has.
444. That which is asamikshitam is samagram karpanyam.
445. Nilakantha explains that vala here means patience (strength to bear) and ojas (energy) means restraints of the senses.
446. Both the vernacular translators have rendered the second line of verse 25 wrongly. They seem to think that a person by setting out for any of the sacred waters from a distance of a hundred yojanas becomes cleansed. If this meaning be accepted then no man who lives within a hundred yojanas of any of them has any chance of being cleansed. The sense, of course, is that such is the efficacy of these tirthas that a man becomes cleansed by approaching even to a spot within a hundred yojanas of their several sites.
447. These mantras form a part of the morning, noon and evening prayer of every Brahmana. Aghamarshana was a Vedic Rishi of great sanctity.
448. In the first line of 26 the correct reading is Kutah not Kritah as adopted by the Burdwan translators.
449. i.e., beasts and birds. The vernacular translators wrongly render it—'Behold the affection that is cherished by those that are good towards even the beasts and birds!'
450. The correct reading is Murtina (as in the Bombay text) and not Mrityuna. The Burdwan version adopts the incorrect reading.