621:1 Two kinds of great or universal dissolution are here intimated; one occurring at the end of a Kalpa, or day of Brahmá, to which the term Upasanhriti is applied in the text, and Átyantika laya by the commentator; and the other taking place at the end of the life of Brahmá, which is termed a great or elemental dissolution: Mahá pralaya and Prákrita pralaya.

621:2 These measures of time are more fully detailed in the first book: see p. 22.

622:3 This is an allusion to a popular notion, originating probably with Manu: "In the Krita age the genius of truth and right stands firm on his four feet; but in the following ages he is deprived successively of one foot," &c. I. 81, 82.

622:4 'Such an act is just what it is;' that is, it may be attended by inconvenience to the individual, but is utterly inefficacious for the expiation of sin.

622:5 Whether it is conformable or contradictory to the Vedas and the law. The passage may be rendered also, 'The doctrine or dogma of any one soever will be scripture.'

623:6 He will not part with the half of the half of half a Pańa; that is, with ten Cowries; a Pańa being equal to eighty Cowries, or small shells. Five Pańas are equal to one Ana, or the sixteenth of a Rupee; and, at two shillings the Rupee, ten Cowries are equal to about one-seventh of a farthing.

623:7 They will be valued for their individual use only, not from any notion of their generic sanctity.

623:8 The Bhágavata has, "Religious students will be regardless of vows and purification; householders will beg, not give alms; anchorets will dwell in villages; and mendicants will be desirous of riches."

624:9 That is, princes and warriors will be so no longer by virtue of their birth and caste.

624:10 Most of the mendicant orders admit members without distinction of caste; but probably Buddhists especially are here intended. The Bhágavata repeatedly alludes to the diffusion of heretical doctrines and practices, the substitution of outward signs and marks for devotion, and the abandonment of the worship of Vishńu. The Śaiva mendicant orders are probably those especially in view. The same probably are intended by our text in the subsequent allusion to unauthorized austerities, and sectarial marks.

624:11 'Gavedhuka (Coix barbata) and other bad sorts of grain;' Another reading is, 'Countries growing wheat, barley, and the like.' But to place wheat and barley amongst inferior grains, and to rank them lower than rice, is a classification that could have occurred to a native of Bengal alone.

624:12 The Váyu says three and twenty; the Bhágavata, from twenty to thirty.