attributes of Goodness, Passion, and Darkness.  Contentment, the satisfaction that arises from joy, certainty, intelligence, and memory,—­these are the consequences born of the attribute of Goodness.  I shall now mention the consequences of Passion and Darkness.  Desire, wrath, error, cupidity, stupefaction, fear, and fatigue, belong to the attribute of Passion.  Cheerlessness, grief, discontent, vanity, pride, and wickedness, all belong to Darkness.  Examining the gravity or lightness of these and other faults that dwell in the Soul, one should reflect upon each of them one after another (for ascertaining which of them exist, which have become strong or weak, which have been driven off, and which remain).’

“Yudhishthira said, ’What faults are abandoned by persons desirous of Emancipation?  What are those that are weakened by them?  What are the faults that come repeatedly (and are, therefore, incapable of being got rid of)?  What, again, are regarded as weak, through stupefaction (and, therefore, as permissible)?  What, indeed, are those faults upon whose strength and weakness a wise man should reflect with the aid of intelligence and of reasons?  I have doubts upon these subjects.  Discourse to me on these, O grandsire!’

“Bhishma said, ’A person of pure Soul, by extracting all his faults by their roots, succeeds in obtaining Emancipation.  As an axe made of steel cuts a steel chain (and accomplishing the act becomes broken itself), after the same manner, a person of cleansed Soul, destroying all the faults that spring from Darkness and that are born with the Soul (when it is reborn), succeeds in dissolving his connection with the body (and attaining Emancipation).[735] The qualities having their origin in Passion, those that spring from Darkness, and those stainless one characterised by purity (viz., those included under the quality of Goodness), constitute as it were the seed from which all embodied creatures have grown.  Amongst these, the attribute of Goodness alone is the cause through which persons of cleansed Souls succeed in attaining to Emancipation.  A person of cleansed soul, therefore, should abandon all the qualities born of Passion and Darkness.  Then again, when the quality of Goodness becomes freed from those of Passion and Darkness, it becomes more resplendent still.  Some say that sacrifices and other acts performed with the aid of mantras, and which certainly contribute to the purification of the Soul, are evil or cruel acts. (This view is not correct).  On the other hand, those acts are the chief means for dissociating the Soul from all worldly attachments, and for the observance of the religion of tranquillity.  Through the influence of the qualities born of Passion, all unrighteous acts are performed, and all acts fraught with earthly purposes as also all such acts as spring from desire are accomplished.  Through qualities born of Darkness, one does all acts fraught with cupidity and springing from wrath.  In consequence of the attribute of Darkness, one embraces sleep and procrastination and becomes addicted to all acts of cruelty and carnal pleasure.  That person, however, who, possessed of faith and scriptural knowledge, is observant of the attribute of Goodness, attends only to all good things, and becomes endued with (moral) beauty and soul free from every taint.’