Chapter 323

“Yudhishthira said, ‘If there is any efficacy in gifts, in sacrifices, inpenances well-performed, and in dutiful services rendered to preceptorsand other reverend seniors, do thou, O grandsire, speak of the same tome. “Bhishma said, ‘An understanding associated with evil causes the mindto fall into sin. In this state one stains one’s acts, and then fallsinto great distress. Those that are of sinful acts have to take birth aspersons of very indigent circumstances. From famine to famine, from painto pain, from fear to fear, is their change. They are more dead thanthose that are dead. Possessed of affluence, from joy to joy, from heavento heaven, from happiness to happiness, proceed they that are possessedof faith, that are self-restrained, and that are devoted to righteousdeeds. They that are unbelievers have to pass, with groping hands,through regions infested by beasts of prey and elephants and pathlesstracts teeming with snakes and robbers and other causes of fear. Whatmore need be said of these? They, on the other hand, that are endued withreverence for gods and guests, that are liberal, that have proper regardfor persons that are good, and that make gifts in sacrifices, have fortheirs the path (of felicity) that belongs to men of cleansed and subduedsouls. Those that are not righteous should not be counted among men evenas grains without kernel are not counted among grain and as cockroachesare not counted among birds. The acts that one does, follow one even whenone runs fast. Whatever acts one does, lie down with the doer who layshimself down. Indeed, the sins one does, sit when the doer sits, and runwhen he runs. The sins act when the doer acts, and, in fact follow thedoer like his shadow. Whatever the acts one does by whatever means andunder whatever circumstances, are sure to be enjoyed and endured (inrespect of their fruits) by the doer in his next life. From every sideTime is always dragging all creatures, duly observing the rule in respectof the distance to which they are thrown and which is commensurate withtheir acts.[1735] As flowers and fruits, without being urged, neversuffer their proper time to pass away without making their appearance,even so the acts one has done in past life make their appearance at theproper time. Honour and dishonour, gain and loss, destruction and growth,are seen to set in. No one can resist them (when they come). One of themis enduring, for disappear it must after appearance. The sorrows onesuffers is the result of one’s acts. The happiness one enjoys flows fromone’s acts. From the time when one lies within the mother’s womb onebegins to enjoy and endure one’s acts of a past life. Whatever acts goodand bad one does in childhood, youth, or old age, one enjoys and endurestheir consequences in one’s next life in similar ages. As the calfrecognises its dam even when the latter may stand among thousands of herspecies, after the same manner the acts done by one in one’s past lifecome to one n one’s next life (without any mistake) although one may liveamong thousands of one’s species. As a piece of dirty cloth is whitenedby being washed in water, after the same manner, the righteous, cleansedby continuous exposure unto the fire of fasts and penances, at lastattain to unending happiness. O thou of high intelligence, the desiresand purposes of those whose sins have been washed off by long-continuedpenances well-performed, become crowned with fruition. The track of therighteous cannot be discerned even as that of birds in the, sky or thatof fishes in the water. There is no need of speaking ill of others, norof reciting the instances in which others have tripped. On the otherhand, one should always do what is delightful, agreeable, an beneficialto one’s own self.'”[1736]