Bhishma said Do you, O son, O sinless one, listen once more, with feeling of great pride, to the words given vent to by the Island-born Rishi on the subject of the enumeration of the principles. Like a blazing fire, the great Rishi said these words to his son who took after a fire wrapped in smoke. Instructed by what he said, I also, O son, shall again explain to you that certain knowledge.

The properties of earth are immobility, weight, hardness, productiveness, scent, density, capacity to absorb all sorts of scents, cohesion, habitableness, and that attribute of the mind which is called patience.

The properties of water are coolness, taste, moisture, liquidity, softness, agreeableness, tongue, fluidity, capacity to the congealed, and power to melt all earthy products.

The properties of fire are irresistible energy, inflammability, heat, capacity to soften, light, sorrow, disease, speed, fury, and upward motion.

The properties of the wind are touch that is neither hot nor cool, power to help the organs of speech, independence, strength, celerity, power to help all kinds of discharge, power to raise other objects, breaths inhaled and exhaled, life, and birth.

The properties of space are sound, extension, capacity of being enclosed, absence of refuge, power of being unmanifest, capacity for modification, incapacity for resistance, material cause for producing the sense of hearing, and the unoccupied parts of the human body. These are the fifty properties, as declared, which form the essences of the five elementary entities.

Patience, reasoning, remembrance, forgetfulness or error, imagination, endurance, inclination towards good, inclination towards evil, and restlessness,-are the properties of the mind.

Destruction of both good and evil thoughts, perseverance, concentration, decision, and ascertainment of all things depending upon direct evidence, form the five properties of the understanding.

Yudhisthira said How can the understanding be said to have five properties? How again, can the five senses be described as properties. Explain to me, O grandfather, all this abstruse topic.

Bhishma said The understanding is said to possess altogether sixty properties, for the understanding includes the five clements. All those properties exist in the Soul. The Vedas say, O son, that the elements, their properties, are all created by Him who is above all decay. These entities, therefore, are not eternal.

The theories contradicting the Revelation which have in the previous Verses, O son, been placed before you, are all defective in the eye of reason. Minding, however, in this world all that I have said to you about the Supreme Brahma, do you after acquiring the power which the knowledge of Brahma offers, seek to acquire tranquillity of heart.