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III ADHYAYA, 4 PÂDA, 20.
695
obligatory, and the same reasoning then holds good with regard to the other conditions mentioned. Nor must it be said that the special duties mentioned at the beginning of the section-sacrifice, study, charity, austerity, Brahmakarya-all of them belong to the state of the householder (in which case the text would contain no reference to the other conditions of life); for on that supposition the definite reference to a threefold division of duties, 'Sacrifice, &c. are the first, austerity the second, Brahmakarya the third,' would be unmeaning. The proper explanation is to take the words 'sacrifice, study, and charity' as descriptive of the condition of the householder; the word 'austerity' as descriptive of the duties of the Vaikhanasa and the wandering mendicant, who both practise mortification; and the word 'Brahmakarya' as referring to the duties of the Brahmakärin. The term 'Brahmasamstha' finally, in the concluding clause, refers to all the three conditions of life, as men belonging to all those conditions may be founded on Brahman. Those, the text means to say, who are destitute of this foundation on Brahman and only perform the special duties of their condition of life, obtain the worlds of the blessed; while he only who at the same time founds himself on Brahman attains to immortality.-In the text and those who in the forest,' &c. the mention made of the forest shows that the statement as to the path of the gods has for its presupposition the fact that that stage of life which is especially connected with the forest is one generally recognised.—So far it has been shown that the other stages of life are no less obligatory than that of the householder, whether we take the text under discussion as containing merely a reference to those stages (as established by independent means of proof) or as directly enjoining them. The next Satra is meant to show that the latter view is after all the right one.
20. Or an injunction, as in the case of the carrying.
As the second part of the text · Let him approach carrying the firewood below the ladle; for above he carries
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