Anugita Parva — The fruits of human actions

The Brahmana said The acts, good and bad, that the Individual Soul, docs are not subject 10 destruction. Upon attainment of body after body, those deeds yield fruits corresponding with then.

As a fruit bearing tree, when the scason for production comes, yields a large quantity of fruit, merit, achieved with a pure heart, likewise yields a large measure of happiness.

Similarly, sin, committed with a sinful heart, produces a large quantity of misery. The Individual Soul, placing the mind a head, performs action.

Hear then how the Individual Soul, cquipped with all his deeds and overwhelmed with lust and anger, enters the womb.

The vital seed, mixed with blood, enters the womb of females and becomes the held (of the Individual Soul), good or bad, born of (his) deeds.

On account of his subtlety and the condition of being unmanifest, the Individual Soul does not become attached to anything even after coming by a body. Therefore, he is called Eternal Brahma.

That (viz., Jiva or Brahma) is the seed of all crcatures. It is on account of Him that living creatures live. That the Individual Soul, cntering all the limbs of the foetus part by part, accepting the attribute of mind, and living within all the regions that belong to vital air, supports (life). On account of this, the foetus, becoming possessed of mind, begins to move its limbs.

As liquefied iron, poured (into a mould), takes the form of the mould, so is the entrance of the Individual Soul into the foetus.

As fire, entering a mass of iron, heats it greatly, so is the manifestation of the Individual Soul in the foetus.

As a lamp, burning in a room, discovers (all things within it), so does the mind discover the different limbs of the body.

Whatever deeds, good or bad, the Individual Soul does in a former body, have certainly to be enjoyed or endured by him.

By such enjoyment and endurance former deeds are exhausted, and other deeds, again, accumulate, till the Individual Soul succeed in acquiring a knowledge of the duties included in that contemplation which leads to Liberation.

Regarding this, I shall tell you those deeds by which the individual Soul, O best of men, while passing through a repeated round of rebirths, becomes happy.

Gifts, observances of austerity, celibacy, bearing Brahma according to the ordinances laid down, self-control, tranquility, mercy for all creatures, restraint of passions, abstention from cruelty as also from appropriating others properties, refraining from doing even mentally all deeds that are false and injurious to living creatures on the Earth, respectfully serving mother and father, honouring the celestials and guests, adoration of preceptors, pity, purity, constant control of all organs, and causing of all good deeds are said to form the conduct of the good. From observance of such conduct, originates virtue which protects all creatures eternally.

Such conduct one would always see among good persons. Indeed, such conduct lives there for good. That course of practices which persons of tranquil souls follow, indicates Virtue.

Among them is thrown that course of practices which forms eternal Virtue. He who would follow virtue would never have to come by a miserable end.

It is by the conduct of the good that the world is restrained in the paths of Virtue when it falls away, He who is a Yogin is Liberated, and is, therefore, distinguished above these (viz., the good).

Deliverance from the world occurs, after a long time, of one who acts righteously and well on every occasion as he should.

A living creature thus always meets with his pristine deeds. All these deeds form the cause in consequence of which he comes into this world in a state different from his true form.

There is a doubt in the world about this question. By what was the acceptance (by the individual Soul) of a body first determined.

Having first formed a body of his own, the Grandfather of all the worlds viz., Brahman, then created the three worlds, of mobile and immobile creatures.

Having first himself taken a body, he then created Pradhana. That Pradhana is the material cause of all embodied creatures, by whom is all this covered, and whom all came to know as the greatest.

This which is seen is said to be destructible; while the other is immortal and indestructible. This which (is seen) is said to be Kshara (the destructible); that, however, which is the other is the Iminortal (as also) Akshara (the Indestructible). Of each Purusha taken separately, the whole is duality among these three.

Seen first (to appear in an embodied form). Prajapati (then) created all the primal elements and all immobile creatures. This is the ancient Shruti.

Of that (acceptance of body), thc Grandfather put down a limit about time, and migrations among various creatures and return or re-birth.

All that I say is proper and correct, as a person who has intelligence and who has seen his Soul, would say on this subject of previous births.

That person who considers pleasure and pain as inconstant, which, indced, is the correct view, who regards the body as an unholy collection, and destruction as ordained in action, and who remembers that what little of pleasure there is, is really all pain, will succeed in crossing this terrible ocean of worldly migration which is so difficult to cross.

Though attacked by decrepitude and death and disease, he who understand Pradhana sees with an equal eye that Consciousness which lives in all beings gifted with Consciousness.

Seeking the supreme seat, he then becomes utterly indifferent to all (other) things. O best of men, I shall now deliver instruction to you, according to truth, concerning this.

Do you, O learned Brahmana, understand in full what form the excellent knowledge, as I declare it, of that indestructible seat.