317.  The commentator explains that the drift of Yudhishthira’s query is this:  the giver and the receiver do not meet in the next world.  How then can an object given away return or find its way back to the giver in the next world or next life?

318.  Abhimanat is differently understood by the commentator.

319.  Yuktaih is the better reading, although muktaih may not be erroneous.  Yuktain is charaih; while muktath is ’men charged with a commission to do a thing’.

320.  This sacrifice is the sacrifices of gifts.  ’Spreading out a sacrifice’ means ’spreading out the articles and placing them in proper order in view of the sacrifice.’  ‘Dadatah vartotam’ means datustaya saryanastu.

321.  The sense is this:  gifts made to such superior Brahmanas serve to free a person from the debts which he owes to the deities.  The ’water of gifts’ means the water that the giver sprinkles, with a blade of Kusa grass, over the article given away, saying, ‘I give this away’.  In the sacrifice constituted by gifts, such water is like the dedication of offerings to the Pitris.  A knowledge of the ritual of sacrifice is needed to understand and appreciate the figures employed in such verses.

322.  Some texts read tathabham, meaning abhayam or fearlessness is from them—­Tathobhayam (which I adopt) is that both, Heaven and Hell become one’s through them if gratified, they bestow Heaven; if angry, they hurl into Hell.

323.  Yachyam is yachanarupamkarma, Anisasya is daridrasya.  Abhiharam is tirashkaram.  Yachanti bhutani means those who beg or solicit.  In the Santi Parva, Bhishma in one place directs beggars to be driven away from towns and cities as annoyers of respectable people.  This, however, applies to professional beggars, and not persons in real distress.

324.  Antarvedyan is within the platform; and Anrisamsyatah is vahirvedyan or outside the platform.

325.  Sacrifices are a means of giving away unto the Brahmanas.

326.  Weeping women means women of destitute condition and, therefore, unable to pay.

327.  The first word in the first line is not kshatam but kritam.

328.  The Commentator explains that because giver by one that is dear or given to one that is dear, therefore is she called Priyadatta.

329.  This is evidently a crux.  Prasamsanti means generally praise.  Here it means reproach or censure.  The second line may also mean, his enemies dare not attack his kingdom.

330.  This is the utterance or declaration of the earth herself.

331.  Rich with every taste’ the idea is that things have six tastes, viz., sweet, sour, etc.  The quality of taste is drawn by things from the soil or earth.  The tastes inhere in earth, for it is the same earth that produces the sugarcane and the tamarind.

332.  Sparsitam is dattam.

333.  The Bombay reading adityatastansha is better than the Bengal reading adityataptansha.