Mokshadharma Parva — The efficacy of gifts, sacrifice and penance's

Yudhishthira said If there is any efficacy in gifts, in sacrifices, in penances, well done, and in dutiful services done to preceptors and other reverend elders, do you, O grandfather, speak of the same to me.

Bhishma said An understanding associated with evil, makes the mind fall into sin. In this state one stains his deeds, and then falls into great distress.

Those who are of sinful deeds, have to take birth as persons of very poor circumstances, They pass from famine to famine, from pain to pain, from fear to fear. They are more dead than those who are dead.

Possessed of affluence, persons having faith, who are self-controlled, and who are devoted to righteous deeds, go from joy to joy, from heaven to heaven, from happiness to happiness.

The unbelievers have to pass, with groping hands, through regions full of beasts of prey and elephants and pathless tracts full of snakes and robbers and other causes of fear. What more need be said of these?

They, on the other hand, who have reverence for gods and guests, who are liberal, who have respect for good men, and who makes gifts in sacrifices, have for theirs the path that belongs to men of purified and subdued souls.

Those who are not pious should not be counted among men even as grains without kennel are not counted among grain and a6 cockroaches are not counted among birds.

The acts that one does, follow him even when he runs fast. Whatever act one does, lie down with the doer when the doer lays himself down.

Indeed, the sins one commits, sin when the doer sits, and run when he runs. The sin acts when the doer acts, and, in deed, follow the doer like his shadow.

Whatever the acts one does by whatever means and under whatever circumstances, are sure to be enjoyed and suffered by the doer in his next life.

From every side Time is always dragging all creatures, following the rule about the distance to which they are thrown and which is commensurate with their deeds.

As flowers and fruits, without being compelled, never allow their proper time to pass away without making their appearance, so the acts one has done in past life appear at the proper time.

Honour and dishonour, profit and loss, destruction and growth, are seen to set in. No one can resist them. None of them is everlasting for it must disappear in the end.

The sorrows one suffers is the outcome of his deeds. The happiness one enjoys originates from his deeds. From the time when one lies within the mother's womb one begins to enjoy and suffer his pristine deeds.

Whatever acts good and bad one does in childhood, youth, or old age, one enjoys and suffer their consequences in his next life in similar ages.

As the calf recognises its dam even when the latter may stand among thousands of her kind, similarly the acts done by one in his past life come to him in the next life although he may live among thousands of his species.

As a piece of dirty cloth is whitened by being washed in water, similarly the righteous, purified by continuous exposure to the fire of fasts and penances at last acquire eternal happiness.

O you of great intelligence, the desires and purposes of those whose sins have been purged off by long-continued penances wellperformed, become fruitful.

The path of the righteous cannot be discerned even as that of birds in the sky or that of fishes in the water.

There is no need of speaking ill of others; nor of reciting the instances of their failure. On the other hand, one should always do what is delightful, sweet, and beneficial to his own self.