Mokshadharma Parva — An account of Religion

Yudhishthira said You have, O grandfather, described the sacred duties of kings regarding the persons in distress. O king, you should tell me now those foremost of duties of those who lead the (four) modes of life.

Bhishma said Religion has many doors. The observance of the duties sanctioned by religion can never be useless. Duties have been laid down regarding every mode of life. The fruits of Penance with regard to the development of the Soul, are to be had in this worid.

The object to which one devotes oneself, whatever it may be, O Bharata, and nothing else, appears to as the highest of acquisitions fraught with the greatest of blessings.

When one meditates properly, one comes to know that the things of this world are useless one as straw. Forsooth, one is then freed from attachment of those things.

When the world, O Yudhishthira, which is full of shortcomings, is so framed, every intelligent man, should try to acquire the liberation of his soul.

Yudhishthira said Tell me, O grandfather, by what condition of mind should one kill his grief when he loses his riches, or his wife, or son, or father.

Bhishma said, When one's wealth is lost, or one's wife or son or father is dead, he certainly says to oneself,-Alas, it is a great sorrow,-But then one should, by the help of meditation, try to kill that grief.

Regarding it is mentioned the old story of the speech that a twice-born friend of his, coming to Senajit's court, made to that king.

Seeing the monarch stricken with grief and burning with sorrow on account of the death of his son, the Brahmana said to that king of very

Why are you stupefied? You are without any intelligence. You are yourself an object of grief, why do you grieve (for others)? A few days hence others will grieve for you, and in their turn they will be grieved for by others still.

Yourself, myself, and others who wait upon you, O king, shall all repair whence all of us have come.

Senajit said What is that intelligence, what that penance, O learned Brahmana, what that concentration of mind, O you having asceticism for wealth, what that knowledge, and what that learning, by gaining which you do not give way to grief?

The Brahmana said See, all creatures-the superior, the middling, and the inferiorm-on account of their respective acts, and entangled in sorrow.

I do not consider even my own self to be mine. On the other hand, I consider the whole world to be mine. I again consider all this as much mine as it belongs to others. Grief cannot attack me for this thought.

Having gained such an understanding, I do not give way to joy or to grief. As two pieces of wood floating on the sea meet together at one time and are again separated, so is the union of (living) creatures in this world.

Sons, grandsons, kinsmen relatives, are all of this nature. One should One should never feel attachment for them, for separation with them is inevitable.

Your son came from an invisible quarter. He has gone away and become invisible. He did not know you. You did not know him. Who are you and for whom do you grieve.

Grief is the child of the disease created by desire. Happiness again comes when the disease of desire is cured. From joy originates sorrow, and sorrow comes again and again.

Sorrow comes after joy, and joy after sorrow. The joys and sorrows of human beings are revolving on a wheel.

After happiness sorrow has come to you. You will again enjoy happiness for good and no one enjoys happiness for good.

The body is the abode of both sorrow and happiness. An embodied creature suffers the consequences of whatever acts he performs with the help of his body.

Life comes with the creation of the body. The two exist together, and the two die together.

Men of impure souls, attached to worldly objects by various fetters, disappear like embankments of sand in water.

Miseries of various sorts begotten by ignorance, act like pressers of oil-seeds, for attacking all creatures for their attachments; these press them like oil-seeds in the oilmaking machine subjecting them to the round of re-births.

Man, for the sake of his wife, commits numberless evil deeds, but suffers alone various kinds of misery both in this and the next world.

All men, attached to children, wives kinsmen and relatives sink in the miry sea of sorrow like wild elephants, when shom of strength, sinking in a miry slough.

Indeed, O king, upon loss of wealth or son or kinsmen or relatives, man suffers great misery burning him like a forest fire.

All this, viz., joy and grief, existence and non-existence depend upon destiny. One having friends as well as one having none, one having enemies as well as one having none, one having wisdom as well as one shorn of it, each and every one amongst these, enjoys happiness through destiny.

Friends are not the root of one's happiness. Enemies are not the root of one's misery. Wisdom cannot bring on wealth; wealth cannot give happiness.

Intelligence cannot give wealth, nor is stupidity the cause of poverty. Only a wise man, and none else, understands the order of the world.

Of the intelligent, the heroic, the foolish, the cowardly, the idiotic, the earned, the weak, or the strong, happiness comes to him only for whom it is ordained.

The cow belongs to the calf, to the cowherd who is her master, and to the thief. Indeed, she is his who drinks her milk.

They whose understandings are dormant, and they who have that state of the mind which lies beyond the range of the intellect, succeed in enjoying happiness. Only they who are between these two classes, suffer misery.

The wise find pleasure in the two extremes but not in the intermediate states. The sages have said that the attainment of any of these two extremes form happiness. Misery lies in the intermediate states between the two.

Those who have succeeded in acquiring real happiness, and who have become freed from the pleasures and pains of this world, and who are shorn of envy, are never moved by either the accession of wealth or its loss.

Those who have not gained that intelligence which brings on real happiness, but who have got over folly and ignorance yield to excessive joy and excessive misery.

Men who have no ideas of right or wrong, who are beside themselves with pride and with success over others, give way to transports of delight like the celestials.

Happiness must terminate in misery. Idleness is misery; while cleverness (in action) is the root of felicity. Affluence and prosperity live in a clever man, but not in an idle wight.

Be it happiness or be it misery, be it pleasant or be it otherwise, what comes to one should be enjoyed or put up with an unconquered heart.

Every day a thousand occasions for sorrow, and a hundred occasions for fear attack an ignorant and foolish man but a wise man is never so affected.

Sorrow can never touch an intelligent man, one who has acquired wisdom, one who obeys the instructions of his elders, one who has no envy, and one who has controlled his self.

Depending upon such an understanding, and guarding his heart (against the influences of desire and the passions), the wise man should work on in this world. Indeed, sorrow cannot affect him who knows that Supreme Self from which everything emanate and to which everything disappears.

The very root of grief, or heart-burning, or sorrow or of action, should, even if it be a part of one's body, the cast off.

That object, whatever it may be, which one considers as his own, is a source of grief and heart-burning.

If objects, of desire, are renounced they become sources of happiness. The man who follows objects of desire is ruined in that pursuit.

Neither the happiness which is derived from a gratification of the senses nor that great happiness which one may enjoy in heaven, even comes up to a sixteenth part of the happiness which originates from the destruction of all desire.

The consequences of pristine decds, right or wrong, affect the wise and the foolish, the brave and the mind.

Thus joy and sorrow, the agreeable and the disagreeable, continually revolve among living creatures.

Thus knowing an intelligent and wise man lives at ease. A person should renounce all his desires, and never give way to anger.

This anger originates in the heart and becomes powerful there. This anger which lives in the bodies of men and is born in their minds, is described by the wise as Death.

When a person withdraws all his desires like a tortoise withdrawing all its limbs, then its soul, which is self-luminous, can see itself.

When a person himself feels no fear and is feared by no one, when he has no desire and no hatred, he is then said to attain to the state of Brahima.

Renouncing both truth and falsehood, grief and joy, fear and courage, the agreeable and the disagreeable, you may acquire equanimity of soul.

When a person does no wrong to any creature, in thought, word, or deed, he is then said to attain to a state of Brahma.

He alone enjoys true happiness who can renounce that thirst which cannot be cast off by the misguided, which does not decay with decrepitude, and which is considered as a fatal disease.

About it, O king, are heard the verses sung by Pingala regarding the way in which she had acquired eternal inerit even at a very unfavourable time.

Having gone to the appointed place, a fallen woman of the name of Pingala could not enjoy the company of her lover through an accident. At that time of great misery, she acquired equanimity of soul.

Pingala said Alas, I have for many years lived ignorantly, by the side of tha dear Self in whom there is nothing but tranquility. Death has been at my door. Ere this, I did not, however, approach that Essence of Purity.

I shall cover this house of one column and nine doors, i.e., body, (by means of true knowledge). What woman is there who considers that dear. Supreme Soul, even when He is so near, as really dear.

I am now awake. I have been roused from the sleep of ignorance. I am no longer under the influence of desire. Human lovers, who are, in fact, so many embodiments of hell, shall no longer impose upon me by approaching me lustfully.

Evil yields good through destiny or through pristine deeds. Roused from the sleep of ignorance, I have renounced all desire for worldly objects. I have gained a complete mastery over my senses.

One freed from desire and hope sleeps happily. Freedom from hope and desire is happiness. Having renounced desire and hope, Pingala sleeps happily.

Bhishma said Consoled with these and other words of the learned Brahmana, king Senajit enjoyed delight and became very happy.