194.45 onwards refers to meditative ideas and is probably a continuation of the earlier creative tract: 194.49 it likens world creation to the action of a spider emitting its web, a monistic creation simile found in other early Brahminic texts (such as Brhadaranyaka Upanisad 11.1.20) and Svetasvatara Upanisad (vi. 10), and this agrees with the monistic outlook of 194.18. For a more detailed analysis of canto 194, see: VAN BUITENEN (1956: 153–57); FRAUWALLNER (1973: 227ff); BAKKER AND BISSCHOP (1999).

194.31–36 A different treatment of these verses is found at 219.26–31, where they form part of the Samkhya teaching of Pancha·shikha.

194.45On the notion of the senses emitting rays, see 206.12–14.

196.6 Yama is the Hindu god who presides over the spirits of the dead. The story of the encounter between the brahmin and Yama does not begin until canto 199, however. The intervening verses are probably interpolations, the intention of which was to say more about the practice of quiet Vedic recitation (japa).

196.7 The term Vedanta means “the end of the Veda” and here refers to the early Upanishads and the speculation contained within them.

198.5 The god Shukra is Venus, and Brihas·pati is Jupiter.

198.7 Nilakantha interprets the two as pleasure and pain (priy’/apriya); the three as the three psychosomatic states of purity, passion and darkness; the eight as material elements (1), senses (2), mind (3), intelligence (4), karmic impressions (5), karma (6), the bodily winds (7) and ignorance (8), and the three again as the object of cognition, the subject of cognition and cognition itself (jneya/jnana/jnatr/bhavah).

199.1 Please tell me about that: this comment refers to the beginning of the dialogue (199.6), where Bhishma informs Yudhi·shthira of a dialogue between Yama, Time and a brahmin.