^150:3 Here the Madhyandinas (p. 1080) add, gata eva na gayate, ko nv enam ganayet punah, which the Kanvas place later.

^150:4 Instead of angasa, the Madhyandinas have anyatah.

^150:5 The Madhyandinas have dhanaruha u vai, which is better than iva vai, the iva being, according to Sankara's own confession, useless. The thread of the argument does not seem to have been clearly perceived by the commentators. What the poet wants to say is, that a man, struck down by death, does not come to life again from seed, because human seed comes from the living only, while trees, springing from grain, are seen to come to life after the tree (which yielded the grain or the seed) is dead. Pretya-sambhava like pretya-bhava, means life after death, and pretyasambhava, as an adjective, means coming to life after death.

^150:6 This line too is taken in a different sense by the commentator. According to him, it would mean: 'If you say, He has been born (and there is an end of all questioning), I say, No; he is born again, and the question is, How?' This is much too artificial. The order of the verses in the Madhyandina-sakha is better on the whole, leading up more naturally to the question, 'From what root then does a mortal grow up, after he has been felled by death?' When the Brahmans cannot answer, Yagnavalkya answers, or the Sruti declares, that the root from whence a mortal springs again, after death, is Brahman.

^151:1 Sankara explains ratir datuh as rater datuh, a reading adopted by the Madhyandinas. He then arrives at the statement that Brahman is the principle or the last source, also the root of a new life, both for those who practise works and for those who, having relinquished works, stand firm in knowledge. Regnaud (II, p. 138) translates: 'C'est Brahma (qui est) l'intelligence, le bonheur, la richesse, le but supreme de celui qui offre (des sacrifices), et de celui qui reside (en lui), de celui qui connait.'