The three paths are explained as righteousness, unrighteousness, and knowledge, and the one deception arising from two causes is ignorance of self, produced by good or bad works.

^234:1 Here again, where the Isvara is likened to a stream, the minute coincidences are explained by Sankara in accordance with certain systems of philosophy. The five streams are the five receptive organs, the five springs are the five elements, the five waves are the five active organs. The head is the manas, the mind, or common sensory, from which the perceptions of the five senses spring. The five whirlpools are the objects of the five senses, the five rapids are the five pains of being in the womb, being born, growing old, growing ill, and dying. The next adjective pankasadbhedam is not fully explained by Sankara. He only mentions the five divisions of the klesa (see Yoga-sutras II, 2), but does not show how their number is raised to fifty. Dr. Roer proposes to read pankaklesa-bhedam, but that would not agree with the metre. The five parvans or branches are not explained, and may refer to the fifty kinds of suffering (klesa). The whole river, like the wheel in the preceding verse, is meant for the Brahman as karyakaranatmaka, in the form of cause and effect, as the phenomenal, not the absolutely real world.

^234:2 If he has been blessed by the Isvara, i.e. when he has been accepted by the Lord, when he has discovered his own true self in the Lord. It must be remembered, however, that both the Isvara, the Lord, and the purusha, the individual soul, are phenomenal only, and that the Brahma-wheel is meant for the prapanka, the manifest, but unreal world.

^235:1 The subject (bhoktri), the object (bhogya), and the mover (preritri), see verse 12.

^235:2 B. has Vedavido, those who know the Vedas.

^235:3 Tasmin praliyate tv atma samadhih sa udahritah.

^235:4 Read badhyate for budhyate.

^235:5 The form isanisau is explained as khandasa; likewise brahmam for brahma.

^235:6 Cf. Svet. Up. IV, 5, bhuktabhogyam.

^235:7 The three are (1) the lord, the personal god, the creator and ruler; (2) the individual soul or souls; and (3) the power of creation, the devatmasakti of verse 3. All three are contained in Brahman; see verses 7, 12. So 'pi mayi paramesvaro mayopadhisannidhes tadvan iva.

^235:8 See verse 8.

^235:9 The recognised name for Prakriti, or here Devatmasakti, in the later Sankhya philosophy.

^235:10 Hara, one of the names of Siva or Rudra, is here explained as avidyader haranat, taking away ignorance. He would seem to be meant for the Isvara or deva, the one god, though immediately afterwards he is taken for the true Brahman, and not for its phenomenal divine personification only.

^236:1 The self, Atman, used here, as before, for purusha, the individual soul, or rather the individual souls.