“Sower sows seed” renders the triplicated expression nevāpiko nivāpaṁ nivapati. The root sense of vap is to “cast down” or “sow” seed; it is also used of offerings for the ancestors in the śrāddha ceremony. It is tempting to translate this phrase as a “trapper” who lays “bait”. But the aim of the “sower” is simply to grow a crop, and to do this they need to keep the deer out. That is the guile of the story: they appear harmless. | For an amicable solution to this problem, see the conclusion to the Rurumigarāja Jātaka (Ja 482) | Migajāta (“deer”) might be better translated as “wild animals” here.

The repeated nāma is strongly emphatic. | Parajana sometimes means “stranger” (Mil 6.3.1:13.2), but the commentary here glosses it as yakkha, and a yakkha named Parajana makes an appearance in (MN 31:21.1). Presumably it has a sense not dissimilar to amanussa, “non-human”. Compare the itarajanā of Atharvaveda Saṁhita 8.10.28a.

Vākarā (variant vāgurā, which is also the Sanskrit form) is a net or snare, which here is staked out on sticks. The deer would have to leap over it, revealing their position. | Gāha here is from √gāh (“deep place, hidey-hole”) rather than √gah (“take”).

Following this the Mahāsaṅgīti edition has a ghost sentence, formed by adding the first part of the subsequent sentence with the second part of the previous. It is absent from the PTS text.

“Heart’s release” (cetovimutti) is a term for the meditative absorptions, which are listed below. | While these meditators did indeed escape Māra for a while, from the point of view of the eightfold path, they were neglecting right livelihood. A Buddhist mendicant relies on alms, which not only ensures adequate nutrition, but helps build community and spread the Dhamma. | For the dependency of absorption on food, see also the Buddha’s account of his own practice before awakening (MN 36:33.2).

This group failed to develop right view. For more on these speculative views, see MN 63 and MN 72.

This is the famous list of ten “undeclared points”, which are found throughout the suttas (eg. DN 9:25.3, MN 63:2.3, MN 72:3.1, and the whole of SN 44). They seem to have functioned as a kind of checklist by which philosophers could be evaluated and classified. In the Jain Bhagavatisūtra 9.33, Indrabhūti Gautama tests the impostor Jamāli’s bona fides by asking about the eternity of the world and the soul. When Jamāli failed to answer, Mahāvīra stepped in, explaining that both the soul and the world are in one sense eternal since they last forever, but in another sense they are transient since they go through different phases. | The word loka occurs in a number of senses, but here it refers to the entire “cosmos” of countless worlds.

Here the text shifts from “ascetics and brahmins”—that is, any kind of religious practitioner—to “mendicants”, who were Buddhist alms-gatherers. Having learned the importance of right livelihood and right view, they are now practicing absorption as part of the noble eightfold path.

The “cessation of perception and feeling” (saññāvedayitanirodha) is a culminating meditation state of supreme subtlety that often leads directly to awakening (but see AN 5.166). The state itself, like all meditation states, is temporary, but afterwards the defilements can be eliminated forever. This liberating insight is the consequence of the balanced development of all eight factors of the path.