It is through ignorance that the Soul
ascribes to itself their enjoyments and their actions.
953. I render Bhutatma by knowledge, following the commentator who uses
the words buddhyupadhirjivah for explaining it.
954. Niyama and Visarga are explained by the commentator as 'destruction'
and 'creation.' I prefer to take them as meaning 'guiding or
restraining,' and 'employing.' Practically, the explanations are
identical.
955. What is meant by the objects of the senses residing within the
bodies of living creatures is that (as the commentator explains) their
concepts exist in 'the cavity of the heart' (probably, mind) so that when
necessary or called for, they appear (before the mind's eye). Swabhava is
explained as 'attributes' like heat and cold, etc.
956. This is a very difficult verse. I have rendered it, following
Nilakantha's gloss. In verse the speaker lays down what entities dwell in
the body. In the rest he expounds the nature of Sattwa which the
commentator takes to mean buddhi or knowledge. He begins with the
statement that Sattwasya asrayah nasti. This does not mean that the
knowledge has no refuge, for that would be absurd, but it means that the
asraya of the knowledge, i.e., that in which the knowledge dwells, viz.,
the body, does not exist, the true doctrine being that the body has no
real existence but that it exists like to its image in a dream. The body
being non-existent, what then is the real refuge of the knowledge? The
speaker answers it by saying Gunah, implying that primeval Prakriti
characterised by the three attributes is that real refuge.
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