^266:3 Sankarananda reads tada sivam avignaya duhkhasyanto bhavishyati; Vignanatman retains devam but mentions sivam as a various reading. Both have anto, not antam, like Roer. Sankara seems to have found na before bhavishyati, or to have read duhkhanto na bhavishyati, for he explains that there will be no end of misery, unless God has first been known. It is possible, however, that the same idea may be expressed in the text as we read it, so that it should mean, Only when the impossible shall happen, such as the sky being rolled up by men, will misery cease, unless God has been discovered in the heart.

^266:4 The MSS, read devaprasadat, which is more in keeping with the character of this Upanishad.

^266:5 Samyak may be both adverb and adjective in this sentence, kakakshinyayena.

^266:6 Atyasramin is explained by Sankara as atyantam pugyatamasramibhyah; and he adds, katurvidha bhikshavas ka bahudakakutikakau, Hamsah paramahamsas ka yo yah paskat sa uttamah. Weber (Indische Studien, II, 109) has himself corrected his mistake of reading antyasramibhyah, and translating it by neighbouring hermits.

These four stages in the life of a Sannyasin are the same to-day as they were in the time of the Upanishads, and Dayananda Sarasvati describes them in his autobiography, though in a different order: 1. Kutikaka, living in a hut, or in a desolate place, and wearing a red-ochre coloured garment, carrying a three-knotted bamboo rod, and wearing the hair in the centre of the crown of the head, having the sacred thread, and devoting oneself to the contemplation of Parabrahma. 2. Bahudaka, one who lives quite apart from his family and the world, maintains himself on alms collected at seven houses, and wears the same kind of reddish garment. 3. Hamsa, the same as in the preceding case, except the carrying of only a one-knotted bamboo. 4. Paramahamsa, the same as the others; but the ascetic wears the sacred thread, and his hair and beard are quite long. This is the highest of all orders. A Paramahamsa who shows himself worthy is on the very threshold of becoming a Dikshita.

^267:1 Cf. Brih. Up. VI, 3, 12; Maitr. Up. VI, 2 9.

PRASNA-UPANISHAD.