change. They are more dead than those that are
dead. Possessed of affluence, from joy to joy,
from heaven to heaven, from happiness to happiness,
proceed they that are possessed of faith, that are
self-restrained, and that are devoted to righteous
deeds. They that are unbelievers have to pass,
with groping hands, through regions infested by beasts
of prey and elephants and pathless tracts teeming
with snakes and robbers and other causes of fear.
What more need be said of these? They, on the
other hand, that are endued with reverence for gods
and guests, that are liberal, that have proper regard
for persons that are good, and that make gifts in sacrifices,
have for theirs the path (of felicity) that belongs
to men of cleansed and subdued souls. Those that
are not righteous should not be counted among men even
as grains without kernel are not counted among grain
and as cockroaches are not counted among birds.
The acts that one does, follow one even when one runs
fast. Whatever acts one does, lie down with the
doer who lays himself down. Indeed, the sins
one does, sit when the doer sits, and run when he
runs. The sins act when the doer acts, and, in
fact follow the doer like his shadow. Whatever
the acts one does by whatever means and under whatever
circumstances, are sure to be enjoyed and endured (in
respect of their fruits) by the doer in his next life.
From every side Time is always dragging all creatures,
duly observing the rule in respect of the distance
to which they are thrown and which is commensurate
with their acts.[1735] As flowers and fruits, without
being urged, never suffer their proper time to pass
away without making their appearance, even so the
acts one has done in past life make their appearance
at the proper 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 them is enduring, for disappear it must after
appearance. The sorrows one suffers is the result
of one’s acts. The happiness one enjoys
flows from one’s acts. From the time when
one lies within the mother’s womb one begins
to enjoy and endure one’s acts of a past life.
Whatever acts good and bad one does in childhood,
youth, or old age, one enjoys and endures their consequences
in one’s next life in similar ages. As the
calf recognises its dam even when the latter may stand
among thousands of her species, after the same manner
the acts done by one in one’s past life come
to one n one’s next life (without any mistake)
although one may live among thousands of one’s
species. As a piece of dirty cloth is whitened
by being washed in water, after the same manner, the
righteous, cleansed by continuous exposure unto the
fire of fasts and penances, at last attain to unending
happiness. O thou of high intelligence, the desires
and purposes of those whose sins have been washed off
by long-continued penances well-performed, become
crowned with fruition. The track 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
in which others have tripped. On the other hand,
one should always do what is delightful, agreeable,
an beneficial to one’s own self.’"[1736]