Rajadharmanushasana Parva — Vyasa describes the Time.

Hearing the words of Dvaipayana Vyasa and seeing Dhananjaya angry, Yudhishthira the son of Kunti saluted Vyasa and said.

Yudhishthira said This earthly sovereignty and the various objects of enjoyments cannot give me any joy. On the other hand, this painful grief is cutting me to the quick.

Hearing the lamentations of these women who have lost their heroic husbands and children, I cannot enjoy peace, O sage.

Vaishampayana said Thus addressed, the virtuous Vyasa, the best of all persons conversant with Yoga, endued with great wisdom and a master of the Vedas, said to Yudhishthira.

Vyasa said, No one can acquire anything by his own deeds or by sacrifices and adoration. No man can give anything to another. Man gets everything through Time. The Great Ordainer has made the course of Time the instrument of acquisition.

By mere intelligence of study of the scriptures, men, if Time be not propitious, cannot acquire any earthly object. Sometimes an ignorant fool may acquire wealth. Time is the the powerful instrument for the accomplishment of all acts.

During the hour of adversity, neither science, nor incantations, nor drugs, produce any fruits. In prosperity, however, those very things, applied, yield abundant fruits.

By time the winds blow violently; by Time the clouds become surcharged with rain; by Time tanks become adorned with lotuses of various sorts; by Time trees in the forest are covered with flowers.

By Time nights become dark or lighted. By Time the Moon becomes full. If the proper Time does not come, trees do not bear flowers and fruits. If the proper Time does not come, the currents of rivers do not become powerful.

Birds, snakes, deer, elephants and other animals never become excited when the proper Time does not come. If the proper Time does not come, women do not conceive. It is with Time that winter, summer, and the rainy seasons come.

If the proper Time does not come, no one is born and no one dies. If the Time does not come, the infant does not gain power of speech. If the Time does not come one does not come by youth. It is with Time that the seed sown sprouts up.

If the Time does not come, the Sun does not appear in the horizon, nor, when the Time for it does not come, does he set. If the Time for it does not come, the Moon does not increase nor wane, nor the ocean with its waves rise and ebb.

In this connection is related the old story, O Yudhishthira, by king Senajit in sorrow.

The powerful course of Time affects all mortals. All earthly objects, ripened by Time, meet with destruction.

Some, O king, kill some men. The killers, again, are slain by others. This is what the world says. In reality, however, no one kills and no one is killed.

Some body thinks men kill (their fellow men). Another thinks men do not kill. The truth is that the birth and death of all creatures have been ordained to happen by their very nature.

At the loss of one's riches or the death of one's wife or son or father, one cries out saying-Alas what grief!-and the continued thought of that sorrow always increases it.

Why do you, like a foolish man, grieve? Why do you grieve for them who are subject to grief? Mark, grief is enhanced by indulgence as fear is by fearing.

This body even is not mine. Nothing in this Earth is mine. The things of this Earth belong as much to others as to me. Seeing this, the wise do not allow themselves to be beguiled.

There are thousands of causes for sorrow and hundreds of causes for joy. These affect daily the ignorant only, but not the wise.

These in course of Time. become objects of love or hatred, and appearing as happiness or misery revolve for affecting living creatures.

There is only sorrow in this world and not happiness. Therefore sorrow only is felt. Desire begets sorrow and sorrow happiness.

Sorrow comes after happiness. and happiness after sorrow. One does not always suffer sorrow or always enjoy happiness.

Happiness always ends in sorrow and sometimes originates from sorrow itself. He, therefore, who desires perpetual happiness must give up both.

When sorrow must arise upon termination of happiness, and happiness upon the termination of sorrow, and should, therefore, shake off, like a (snake-bit) limb, that which begets sorrow or that heart-burning which is reared by sorrow or that which is the root of his anxiety.

Happiness or sorrow, whatever comes should be borne with an unaffected heart.

O amiable king, if you do not in the least, do what is agreeable to your wives and children, you shall then know who is whose, and why so, and for what.

Only those who stolid fools and those who are masters of their souls enjoy happiness here. They, however, who occupy an intermediate position suffering misery.

This, O Yudhishthira, is what the highly wise the Senajit who was conversant with what is good or bad in this world, with duties, and with happiness and misery said.

He who is grieved at other people's griefs can never enjoy happiness. There is no end of grief, and grief originates from happiness itself.

Happiness and misery, prosperity and adversity, gain and loss, death and life, in their turn, visit all creatures. There the wise man, endued with equanimity soul would neither be puffed up with joy nor be depressed with sorrow.

Battle has been described as the Sacrifice for a king; observance of chastisement is his Yoga; and the gift of riches in sacrifices in the form of presents his Renunciation. All these should be regarded as acts which purify him.

By governing the kingdom with intelligence and policy, casting off wide, celebrating sacrifices, and looking at everything and all the persons with kindness and impartiality, a great king, after death, sports in the region of the celestials.

By gaining battles, protecting his kingdom, drinking the Soma juice, making his subjects prosper, holding judiciously the rod of chastisement, and renouncing his body at last in fight, a king enjoy happiness in heaven.

Having studied all the Vedas and the other scriptures duly, having protected the kingdom duly, and having made all the four orders follow their respective duties, a king become purified and finally sports in heaven.

He is the best of kings whose conduct, even after his death, is praised by the denizens of the city and the country and by his counsellors and friends.