The Understanding has its refuge in Tamas; Tamas has
Rajas for its refuge; Rajas is founded upon Sattwa;
and Sattwa is attached to the Soul. The soul
has the glorious and puissant Narayana for its refuge.
That glorious deity has Emancipation for his refuge.
Emancipation is independent of all refuge. Knowing
that this body, that is endued with six and ten possessions,
is the result of the quality of Sattwa, understanding
fully the nature of the physical organism and the character
of the Chetana that dwells within it, recognising the
one existent Being that live in the body viz.,
the Soul, which stands aloof from every concern of
the body and in which no sin can attach, realising
the nature of that second object, viz.; the acts
of persons attached to the objects of the senses,
understanding also the character of the senses and
the sensual objects which have their refuge in the
Soul, appreciating the difficulty of Emancipation
and the scriptures that bear upon it knowing fully
the nature of the vital breaths called Prana, Apana,
Samana, Vyana, and Udana, as also the two other breaths,
viz., the one going downward and the other moving
upward indeed, knowing those seven breaths ordained
to accomplish seven different functions, ascertaining
the nature of the Prajapatis and the Rishis and the
high paths, many in number, of virtue or righteousness,
and the seven Rishis and the innumerable royal Rishis,
O scorcher of foes, and the great celestial Rishis
and the other regenerate Rishis endued with the effulgence
of the Sun, beholding all these falling away from
their puissance in course of many long ages, O monarch,
hearing of the destruction of even of all the mighty
beings in the universe, understanding also the inauspicious
end that is attained, O king, by creatures of sinful
acts, and the miseries endured by those that fall
into the river Vaitarani in the realms of Yama, and
the inauspicious wanderings of creatures through diverse
wombs, and the character of their residence in the
unholy uterus in the midst of blood and water and phlegm
and urine and faeces, all of foul smell, and then in
bodies that result from the union of blood and the
vital seed, of marrow and sinews, abounding with hundreds
of nerves and arteries and forming an impure mansion
of nine doors, comprehending also what is for his own
good what those divers combinations are which are
productive of good beholding the abominable conduct
of creatures whose natures are characterised by Darkness
or Passion or Goodness, O chief of Bharata’s
race—conduct that is reprehended, in view
of its incapacity to acquire Emancipation, by the
followers of the Sankhya doctrine who are fully conversant
with the Soul, beholding the swallowing up of the
Moon and the Sun by Rahu, the falling of stars from
their fixed positions and the diversions of constellations
from their orbits, knowing the sad separation of all
united objects and the diabolical behaviour of creatures
in devouring one another, seeing the absence of all