SECTION CXIII

“Yudhishthira said, ’Abstention from injury, the observance of the Vedic ritual, meditation, subjugation of the senses, penances, and obedient services rendered to the preceptors,—­which amongst these is fraught with the greatest merit with respect to a person?’

“Vrihaspati said, All these six are fraught with merit.  They are different doors of piety.  I shall discourse upon them presently.  Do thou listen to them, O chief of the Bharatas!  I shall tell thee what constitutes the highest good of a human being.  That man who practises the religion of universal compassion achieves his highest good.  That man who keeps under control the three faults, viz., lust, wrath, and cupidity, by throwing them upon all creatures (and practises the virtue of compassion), attains to success[519].  He who, from motives of his own happiness, slays other harmless creatures with the rod of chastisement, never attains to happiness, in the next world.  That man who regards all creatures as his own self, and behaves towards them as towards his own self, laying aside the rod of chastisement and completely subjugating his wrath, succeeds in attaining to happiness.  The very deities, who are desirous of a fixed abode, become stupefied in ascertaining the track of that person who constitutes himself the soul of all creatures and looks upon them all as his own self, for such a person leaves no track behind.[520] One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self.  This, in brief, is the rule of Righteousness.  One by acting in a different way by yielding to desire, becomes guilty of unrighteousness.  In refusals and gifts, in happiness and misery, in the agreeable, and the disagreeable, one should judge of their effects by a reference to one’s own self.[521] When One injures another, the injured turns round and injures the injurer.  Similarly, when one cherishes another, that other cherishes the cherisher.  One should frame one’s rule of conduct according to this.  I have told thee what Righteousness is even by this subtile way.’

“Vaisampayana continued, ’The preceptor of the deities, possessed of great intelligence, having said this unto king Yudhishthira the just, ascended upwards for proceeding to Heaven, before our eyes.’”

SECTION CXIV

“Vaisampayana said, ’After this, king Yudhishthira, endued with great energy, and the foremost of eloquent men, addressed his grandsire lying on his bed of arrows, in the following words.’

“Yudhishthira said, ’O thou of great intelligence, the Rishis and Brahmanas and the deities, led by the authority of the Vedas, all applaud that religion which has compassion for its indication.  But, O king, whet I ask thee is this:  how does a man, who has perpetrated acts of injury to others in word, thought and deed, succeed in cleansing himself from misery?’