פירוש על בבא מציעא 167:18

His mind was taken: His mind was taken away from him and he went insane.

He went around, rending his clothing, etc.: Because now he saw that, from those twenty-four difficulties and answers, the discussion would become broadened. So it was as if he learned from him, and he was [then] obligated to rend [his clothing] for him. As it is for that reason that we say, at the end of the chapter [entitled] Elu Metziot, "The Torah scholars of Babylonia would stand up before one another" - and like Rashi's explanation there. And the matter of the twenty-four difficulties and the twenty-four answers is that they were [all] about one matter. So twenty-four difficulties and twenty-four answers were newly generated about that matter, such that there were forty-eight faces (approaches). And with the matter itself, these are the forty-nine faces of the Torah, as it is written (Proverbs 2:4), "and search for it, as for treasures (matmonim, which can also be broken down into two words, which mean, forty-nine counts)." And it is simple to understand.