The greatness of Nivritti1 Dharma

1. Having heard such scriptural texts as are auspicious, dispelling sorrow, conducive to mental peace and happiness, one attains pure intelligence, whereby one attains really happy state.

2. Every day, thousands of incidents causing delight (sorrow-Mbh.) and hundreds of happenings causing sorrow affect a person devoid of wisdom, but not a person endowed with understanding and learning.

3. Persons of little intelligence and understanding become overwhelmed with mental sorrow of every kind due to advent of, and association with what is undesirable and severance from what is agreeable.

4. One should not nostalgically brood over the merits of the articles which one possessed in the past. One who does not think of them with reverent affection, becomes free from the bondage of love.

5. One should try to detect faults in things to which one feeb attached. He should attribute undesirability to them. Then alone he becomes resplendent8 immediately.

6. A person bewails for what is past (and lost permanently), does not acquire either wealth or religious merits or fame. He should reconcile himself with their loss. But that returns to him (?)8

7. Living beings sometimes gain and sometimes lose worldly objects. It should not be the cause of sorrow, to a person.

8. He who bewails the past, that which is dead or lost, attains miseries through miseries. He incurs greater loss and injury.

9. When a calamity causing physical or mental grief visits and cannot be warded off, one should not brood over it.

10. This is the antidote against misery that it should not be brooded over. On being mused over, it does not decrease. Nay, it increases again.

11. One shall dispel mental misery by means of intellect and remove the physical pain by means of medicines. This is the power of knowledge; one should not behave like commoners in such matters.

12. No learned and sensible man shall yearn for these evanescent things viz. — the life, (comely) features, youth, hoarded wealth, health and association with beloved persons.

13. Misery is born of ignorance alone. It does not behove any one to bewail over it. Without bewailing, one shall try to remedy it, if one finds out its source.

14. In this life, undoubtedly misery is more pleasing than happiness; (for) one will (try to) uplift the beloved Atman from the miseries of old age and death.

15. Like the sharp-pointed arrows discharged by a good archer, physical and mental ailments affect the bodies deeply.

16-19. In order to destroy the ailment of a patient, who is afraid and who yearns for life, the body is being dragged about by means of treatments. The ducts of the body continue to flow. Like the current of the rivers they do not turn back. (The sun) takes away the life of men by day and by night again and again, during the two fortnights dark and bright; he makes the born man become old; he never tarries even for a moment. Himself free from old age, he takes away the lives of men overwhelmed by happiness and misery. Again and again, the sun sets, again and again he rises.

20. Taking with them the good and evil incidents that befall men according to their destiny and hence are not expected by them, the nights too pass away ceaselessly.

21. Whatever one may desire, one shall attain, provided the fruit of actions of men does not depend on other factors.

Mbh. reads bahuUxram “the amount of sorrow and pain is greater than that of pleasure in this world.'

matam in the NP is not relevant. Hence As tarn from Mbh. shanii 331.1 (the corresponding verse of the NP) is accepted. In the NP v. 20 above iftardffd manufyApdm matam gacchanti rdtrayaf} / matam seems to be a misprint for mastam.

22-23. Clever, intelligent men of unrestrained senses if destitute of efforts (or karmas), never succeed in earning any fruits. Other persons though destitute of intelligence and without any accomplishments and who are useles4 and really the basest of men, are seen prompted by desires, and are seen indulging in all desires.

24. Another man attempts always to inflict violence on all living beings. He becomes old in deceiving but blessed with happiness throughout his life.

25. Fortune blesses someone who never stirs out but who sits (idle). Some one does everything but never obtains desired objects.

26. In order to recount the faults of men, the semen created in oneself at the sight of another, goes to still another person.5

27. When the semen is absorbed in the womb, it becomes a human foetus.6 The recession (of semen or failure of conception) resembles a mango tree which blossoms fully without producing a single fruit.

28. To some persons who desire sons, who wish to perpetuate their lines and who (by worshipping deities etc.), strive for its achievement, not even an egg (an embryo in the womb) is bom.

29. Some persons who dread the birth of an embryo as one fears a furious serpent, a long-lived son is born. How verily he is like his departed father! (who has as if returned after departing from this life — Mbh. ibid. v. 17)

30. Some persons dejected due to sonlessness and with a burning desire for sons, at last get a son after performing penance and offering sacrifices to gods. The sons, duly borne for ten months (in the wombs by their wives) are born to be the banes and disgrace to their families.

31. Thanks to these blessed rites and observations, others inherit the hoarded wealth and grains and other diverse sources of enjoyment earned and stored by their forefathers.

32. When a man and a woman come in contact with each other, in the act of sexual intercourse, the embryo is formed in the womb like a calamity visiting the woman.

33-34. Due to excessive attachment to objects of senses and due to delusion, death becomes unpleasant. A person who, gives up both (the concepts of) pleasure and pain transcends (these) and goes to Brahman and enjoys the highest bliss.

It is with great difficulty that wealth (or objects of senses) are renounced. Nor it is pleasant or easy to retain them.

35-36a. One should not be worried on hearing about the destruction of riches or when they are not obtained. Some Men of peculiar nature become dissatisfied and are doomed on attaining adverse monetary conditions. But learned men are contented.

36b-38a. All things arc hoarded only to be destroyed in the end. All ascents end in downfall; all contacts and unions end in separation; life ends in death; there is no end to the thirst (desire to get more and more); satisfaction alone is the greatest happiness. Hence, learned men praise satisfaction alone as the real wealth or an asset.

38b-39a. (Defective) When he does not stand even for a moment after acquiring (the body), what should he ever (constantly) brood over when the bodies (themselves) are impermanent and momentary.

39b-40a. Comprehending the real state of (created) beings, those who through the dint of their intelligence have traversed the path beyond darkness, do not come to grief but.see the highest goal.

40b-41a. Like a tiger pouncing on an animal, the god of death picks out and snatches away a person whose desires are not satiated.

41 b-42a. For securing escape from this misery, one should find a remedy. One should eschew grief, should not undertake (sacrifices and secular) activities. He should engage himself (in yoga) and be free from this misery (or fruitless efforts).

42b-43a. Whether in the case of a rich man or a destitute there is nothing more higher than merely the enjoyment of objects of senses such as sound, touch, taste, colour and smell.

43b-44a. Not that there is no misery without ailment to creatures by employment of speech. It is neither through speech nor learning (or knowledge) that ail are separated (from life?)

44b-45a. Restraining one’s affection or attachment to things praised and others (not so praised), he who wanders

45b-46a. Completely absorbed in spiritual pursuits with no expectations and free from desires or lustful enjoyments (inirdmifa), he who moves about with his self as his help-mate, becomes (really) happy.

46b-47. When an interchange or reversal of pleasure and pain takes place, neither his intellectual faculty nor manliness protect him from him. He must naturally exert himself. And a person who goes on doing efforts, is not lost or ruined.

48-49a. The embryo takes birth in the womb like an undesirable calamity. Those previous bodies (envelop) the soul who is eternal. After the suspension of the vital breaths of creatures (i.e. after the death of the body in the previous birth) he is invested with another (physical body) constituted of flesh and phlegm (according to his karmas).

49b-50a. When the previous body is destroyed, by another body which is as weak or strong7 as the previous one is kept reserved for the transmigration of the creature whose previous body is burnt, like one boat is taking to another boat kept stationary and ready for the transfer of passengers.

50b-51a. (I enquire of you:) By whose efforts you see that the foetus continues to be alive (in the womb) when in the act of sexual intercourse a drop of inanimate semen is deposited in the womb.

51b-52a. The food stuffs taken in and beverages imbibed become digested in the stomach. Why then does not the foetus too become digested like the food?

52b-53a. It is Nature which has ordained the stay (of the jiva) in the urine and ordure in the womb. The jlva which is to take birth is helpless and he is not the agent (nor has any choice) in the matter of residence or escape from the womb.

53b-54a. Some come out from the womb alive; others die there (before birth) as their death is inevitable due to the arrival of others (their future bodies ordained by their previous Karma).

54b-55a The person who in the course of sexual intercourse sprays out (sows) the seed, obtains from it some issue.

55b-56a. (It is not the soul but) the gross elements (constituting the physical body) at the close of one hundred years attain this type of seventh stage (i.e. old age) and then cease to exist.

56b-57a. There is no doubt that when persons are afflicted by diseases, they lose the power of getting up or moving about like petty animals attacked by tigers.

57b-58. Despite their best possible efforts, physicians are not able to alleviate the pains of patients.

59. Even those various physicians though experts and equipped with medicines are themselves dragged (attacked) by diseases like beasts assailed by tigers.

60. Even though they imbibe many astringent and different kinds of medicated ghees, they are seen broken down by old age like big trees (naga) by elephants.

61. Who administers medicines to ailing animals, birds, beasts of prey and poverty-striken people? These are not generally seen to be suffering from diseases.

62. A disease attacks and captures even terrible unassailable kings of ferocious energy, just as Candalas or roasters of beasts do to beasts.

63. In this way, people gagged and unable even to groan, submerged in delusion and sorrow are (seen to be) carried away in the big powerful current in which they are thrown.

‘‘He who, while alive, is liberated through this sexual intercourse does not get any worship or honour but sinks in doanduas. This is obviously strange. The original Mbh. verse has:

The comm. NK states the following 10 stages of human life: (1) stay in the womb (2) birth (3) infancy upto 5 years (4) childhood upto 12 years (5) Paugaod (6) youth (7) old age (8) decrepitude (9) suspension of breath and death. The Mbh (ibid) v. 28 reads gatayufab for laUtyufab in the NP and the body is said to attain the 7th or the 9th stage out of the above 10 stages.

64. Neither by wealth nor by power of austere penance can embodied beings seeking to conquer nature, overcome it.

65. All persons desire to attain gradually to the top of the world. They strive to the best of their ability. But the result does not tally with their cherished desire.

66. If people were to obtain the fruit of their attempt (or cherished objective), they would never die, would never grow decrepit and would never have to experience anything unpleasant.

67. Persons who arc careful as well as crooked, cruel and brave pay homage to men inebriated with the flush of affluence and puffed up with arrogance (Mbh. reads: those intoxicated with spirituous liquors).

68. In the case of some, griefs or sorrows recede even before they are glimpsed (by the prospective sufferer) while others who possess nothing of their own overstep8 them.

69. A great disparity is seen in the fruition of the conjunctions of acts. Some bear a palanquine on their shoulders while others ride in them.

70. All persons aspire after affluence or prosperity. Out of them a few have chariots ahead of them in processions. Some men have no wealth (v.l. in the MBh. ‘are wifeless’) while others have hundreds of wives.

71. The opposite pairs — pleasure and pain — exist side by side. People have either one or the other. Have a look at this or that. You should not succumb to delusion.

72. Eschew both Dharma as well as Adharma, cast off (the dualistic concept of) truth and falsehood. After eschewing all the notions, be established in your own Self, be happy and free from all ailments.

73. О excellent sage I have recounted to you in details that secret and mysterious teaching. It is due to such knowledge that the gods (who were formerly human beings) could transcend the earth and go to settle in the heaven.”

74. Having addressed thus Shuka, the son of Vyasa, and bidding good-bye to him, the great sage Sanatkumara who was worshipped by Shuka with deep reverence, went his way.

75. After understanding the whole philosophic position, Shuka, the greatest of the Yogins, became eager to explore the region of the Brahman and went to his father.

76. Thereafter, after meeting his father and bowing him down, the great sage Shuka circumambulated him (clockwise) and proceeded to mount Kailasa.

77. Vyasa, being overcome with filial affection (for his son and pained at separation from him and grieved at heart, cried out, “O son, wait at least for a moment/’

78. Shuka who was above all expectations, became freed from affection and bondage. He thought only of Liberation (from Samsara) and attained the highest region.

1. This chapter is compiled from the Mbh. Sdnti chapters 330 ff., the only difference is that here the interlocutor is Sanatkumara while in the Mbh., it is Narade.

3. NP reads: taccdsya tu nivartate, ‘/u’ in the NP makes this a confused statement. The Mbh. reads na nivartate never returns to him and this is a better reading.

5. These two lines in the NP seem independent or unrelated. In the Mbh. (ibid) v. 14a reads: “you should ascribe the above to the faults of man.”

6. The Mbh. (ibid) v.15 reads vd na va for NP mdnavdfi. The Mbh. means: “When at the sight of some other person semen is created but is actually imparted to another women, there may or may not be any conception.”

7. This verse is the same as Mbh. (ibid) v. 22 with the following change: caldcalam for baldbalam in the NP and ndvam ivd'hitdm for navam ivd' caldm in the NP.

8. The reading adhigacckati in its original in the Mbh. (Sdnti 331.40) has na kiflcid adhigamyaU ‘through possessing no wealth are free from miseries of every type.

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