The Mahabharata

by Bibek Debroy

  Chapter 1637(309)

  ‘Yudhishthira asked, “In ancient times, how did Shuka, Vyasa’s son, obtain knowledge? O Kouravya! I am curious and wish to hear about it.”

  ‘Bhishma said, “The father saw that the son was engaged in the ordinary norms of good conduct and was roaming around fearlessly. He saw that he was capable of studying and taught him everything that there was to be studied. He said, ‘O son! Serve dharma. Conquer extreme cold, heat, hunger, thirst and the wind. Having vanquished these, always subjugate your senses. Always preserve the ordinances of truth, uprightness, lack of anger, lack of malice, self-control, austerities, non-violence and lack of injury. Always base yourself on the truth. Be attached to dharma. In every way, discard deceit. Eat what is left after serving gods and guests. In this journey, life in the body is like foam in a vessel. The jivatman is like a bird.985 O son! Living with beloved ones is temporary. Why dream about it? Even if you are distracted, the enemies are always awake.986 They are searching for a weakness. Do not be so foolish as to ignore this. As one counts the years passing, your lifespan becomes less and less. As long as you are alive, why are you not rushing, to be instructed like a disciple? There are extreme non-believers who desire objects in this world and seek to increase their flesh and blood. Regarding tasks for the world hereafter, they are asleep. The intelligence of these men has been deluded and they censure dharma. They advance along wrong paths and those who follow them are also afflicted. However, there are also those who are content and extremely controlled. They are devoted to truth and the sacred texts. They tread along the path of dharma. Worship them and seek instruction from them. Accept the instructions of those aged ones, who have the insight of dharma. Use supreme intelligence to exercise restraint and prevent the consciousness from treading along wrong paths. There are those whose intelligence is fixed only on today. They are fearless and think that tomorrow is far away. They eat everything. Devoid of consciousness, they do not see that this is an arena for action.987 You are like a silkworm inside a cocoon now, but do not know that you are tied down. There are non-believers who disregard the restraints. They are like bamboos standing up with pride, when the river’s bank is being broken down by a current. Avoid these mean men and keep them to your left.988 Desire, anger, death and the five senses are the water in the river that flows from birth. It is difficult to cross. However, using the boat of resolution, cross it. People are afflicted by death and assailed by old age. The progress of dharma cannot be repulsed and descends on them. Whether you are seated or lying down, death will seek you out. How will you obtain salvation? How will you escape being devoured by death? Despite acquisitions, desire is not satisfied. Like a she-wolf grasping a young ram, death seizes and departs, while one is still engaged in acquiring. The great intelligence of dharma is like the flame of a lamp. Hold it carefully and enter the darkness. Descending through a maze of various bodies, a creature rarely becomes a man and becoming a brahmana is rarer still. O son! Therefore, protect it. You have not been born in this body of a brahmana for the sake of satisfying desire. In this world, it is meant to be tormented through austerities, so that one obtains supreme happiness in the hereafter. The status of a brahmana is obtained after austerities. Having obtained it, it must not be carelessly frittered away. Always be engaged in studying, austerities and self-control. Always endeavour to obtain what is best and beneficial for you. The life of a man is like a horse and it is continuously running. The sixteen parts of the unmanifest Prakriti constitute the body. Its essence is subtle. Kshana, truti and nimesha989 are the body hair. The seasons are the mouth. Shuklapaksha and krishnapaksha, equal in strength, are the eyes. The months are the limbs. If you possess the sight, look at it. It is extended in front, always advancing with great speed. Hear what others have to say about the hereafter and turn your mind towards dharma. There are those who are overcome by desire and are dislodged from dharma. They are always enraged, and engaged in causing harm. Their bodies will be afflicted by pain. Since they do not wish for dharma, they will be burnt by flames.990 A king who is devoted to dharma and always protects the auspicious can look forward to worlds meant for those with righteous deeds. If he performs many kinds of good deeds, he obtains an unblemished felicity that cannot be obtained in thousands of births. If a man transgresses the words of his preceptor, he goes to hell after death. Fierce dogs, crows with iron beaks, large numbers of wild crows, vultures and other birds and blood-sucking worms attack him. In his mind, Svayambhu fixed ten ordinances that must be followed in this world.991 If one does not follow these, such a wicked person confronts terrible misery and has to dwell in the desolate dominion of the ancestors.992 If a man is extremely avaricious, loves falsehood, is always addicted to deception and fraud and causes hardship by appropriating what has been left to him in trust, is the performer of wicked deeds. He goes to the worst of hells and suffers great misery there. He is submerged in the boiling waters of the great river Vaitarani. His body is mangled in a forest where the leaves are like swords. He is flung down and made to lie on a bed made out battle axes. He has to dwell in that great hell and is severely afflicted. You speak about great worlds, but do not see what is supreme. You have never understood that death will always follow. Why don’t you go there?993 A great fear has arisen in front of you. It is terrible and you should arrange for your happiness. Death is ahead of you. On Yama’s instructions, death will convey you to him. Yama is terrible. Make efforts to be upright. Earlier, regardless of your misery, the lord has uprooted your relatives. Though you are still alive, there is nothing that can stand in Yama’s way. The winds that advance ahead of Yama will begin to blow in front. Since you will be conveyed before him, act for the sake of the hereafter. Like a hiccup, Yama’s winds will blow soon. When that great fear arrives, the directions will whirl around in front of you. O son! Soon, the learned texts will disappear. You will head towards agitation. Therefore, act so as to obtain supreme samadhi. Search for the only store of riches. Remembering the past, may you not be tormented by the good and bad deeds that you have done, or have not done. On account of those deeds, may you not be overcome by confusion. Soon, old age will destroy your body and take away your strength, limbs and beauty. Search for the only store of riches. In front of you, Yama will mangle your body with diseases that are like arrows. You will have to tolerate the destruction of your life. Therefore, perform great austerities. Soon, the terrible wolves that are within the human body will attack you in every way.994 Therefore, try to perform auspicious acts. Soon, you will be alone and will perceive a great darkness. Soon, you will see golden trees atop a mountain.995 Soon, you will have evil companions and enemies disguised as well-wishers. They will make you deviate from your insight. O son! Therefore, strive for the supreme. Obtain the radiant riches that suffer no fear on account of theft. Even when one dies, those riches are not taken away. That is earned through one’s own deeds and does not have to be shared with anyone else. One enjoys whatever one has earned. O son! Give, so that one is able to live in the hereafter. On your own, accumulate the riches that are indestructible and permanent. Do not think that greater riches can be obtained after material objects have been cooked and enjoyed.996 Even before those material desires have been satisfied, you may soon be taken away. When there is the hardship,997 one has to traverse alone. Mothers, fathers, relatives, praised and beloved people and companions do not follow one there. When one goes there, one only carries the riches that one has earned through one’s own acts, good or bad. Stores of gold and jewels, accumulated through fair means or foul, accomplish no objective when the body is destroyed. When one goes to the hereafter, there are deeds that have been performed and deeds that have not been performed. For all these, a man has no witness other than his atman. When one goes there, the human body amounts to nothing. However, through the intelligence of insight, it998 can see everything that there is to see. In this world, there are three things that exist in the body—the fire, the sun and the wind. They possess the insight of dharma and are
witnesses to everything. When it is night, one desires all the other wives.999 One thinks that this conduct remains secret, but it is revealed. Therefore, follow your own dharma. There are many obstructions along the path, which is guarded by terrible and malformed creatures. But protect your own deeds. Perform your own deeds and go there. One’s own deeds do not have to be shared with anyone else. One enjoys the fruits, depending on the acts that one has oneself performed. Large numbers of apsaras and maharshis obtain the fruits of bliss. They obtain the fruits of their deeds and go where they will, on celestial vehicles. In a similar way, pure people with cleansed souls, men who have been born in pure wombs, also obtain the fruits of their good deeds. In the hereafter, those who follow the ordinances of the dharma of garhasthya roam around in the worlds of Prajapati, Brihaspati or Shatakratu. I can speak to you about many thousands of methods. However, there is lack of intelligence and delusion and the perception that there is nothing other than material objects.1000 Twenty-four years have certainly passed and you are twenty-five years old now. Your life is thus passing. Act so as to build a store of dharma. Soon, Yama will be there and he will smear your self-control with delusion. Before he arises and seizes you, swiftly act in accordance with dharma. On the road that you have to follow, you alone will lead the way and you alone will follow. You1001 and others do not matter. Without any companions, one has to go there alone. There is fear in the hereafter. Therefore, accumulate the great treasure. Even if one tries to restrain him,1002 the lord takes away the relatives one is attached to, with the foundations of the family. Thus, act to build up the store of dharma. O son! The instructions I have given you are the ones I honour. I have described them. Use your own insight to examine them and act accordingly. If a person gives away whatever riches he has earned through his own deeds, he is freed from a hundred qualities that are associated with ignorance and delusion.1003 One must perform the auspicious rites that are in conformity with the sacred texts. The insight that is given there is beneficial and full of purport. The attachment to dwelling in a village1004 is like a bond made out of ropes. Having severed it, one can perform good deeds. If one does not sever it, one performs bad deeds. O son! What will you do with riches? What will you do with relatives? What will you do with sons? They will die. Enter a cave and search for your atman. Where have all your ancestors gone? Do today a task meant for tomorrow. Do in the forenoon a task meant for the afternoon. Who knows what is today. The soldiers of death do not wait to see. The relatives follow you to the end of the cremation ground and return. Kin and well-wishers hurl a man into the fire. Non-believers are hateful. They are established in their wicked ways. Ignore them and keep them on the left. With undivided attention, seek the supreme. The world is thus afflicted and is oppressed by time. Therefore, resort to dharma with all your soul and resort to the great riches. A man who knows the methods for obtaining this insight well, acts appropriately, in accordance with dharma, and obtains felicity in the hereafter. Know that resorting to another body does not mean death. There is no destruction for a person who himself sticks to the indicated path. A person who enhances dharma is learned. A person who deviates from dharma is deluded. If a person is engaged in his own deeds along the path of action, in due course, he obtains the fruits that have been spoken about. A performer of inferior deeds goes to hell. A person who is devoted to dharma goes to heaven. In general, it is extremely difficult for a man to obtain the staircase to heaven. Therefore, having obtained it, one should concentrate one’s atman, so that one does not fall away again. If a person’s intelligence is such that he follows the path to heaven, he is spoken of as a performer of auspicious deeds and his friends and relatives grieve at his death. If a person’s intelligence is determined and does not waver, he obtains heaven and does not suffer from great fear. Even if a person has been born in a hermitage and dies there, despite not having experienced desire and objects of pleasure, he obtains only a little bit of dharma. I think that if a person forsakes objects of pleasure and torments his body through austerities, he doesn’t obtain only a little, but obtains great fruits. Thousands of mothers and fathers and hundreds of sons and wives have come and will come again.1005 Whom do they belong to? Whom do we belong to? Their tasks have nothing to do with you. Your tasks have nothing to do with them. People are born because of their own deeds and depart from here. In this world, others act as relatives when one is rich. If a person is poor, even when he is alive, relatives are destroyed. For the sake of a wife, a man willingly commits inauspicious acts. Because of those, he suffers hardships in this world and in the next. Behold. In the world of the living, the weaknesses of creatures result from their own deeds. O son! Therefore, act entirely in accordance with the instructions I have imparted to you. Look on this as a field of action and enter it. If you desire worlds in the hereafter, your conduct should be auspicious. Time is the witness of all deeds committed by creatures and forcibly cooks them. It uses the months and the seasons to whirl them around. The sun is the fire and the nights and days are the kindling. What can be gained through riches that are not given away? If strength is not used to restrain enemies, what is its use? If dharma is not followed, what is the use of sacred texts? If the senses are not subjugated, what purpose can the atman have?’ These were the beneficial words that Dvaipayana spoke. Shuka took his father’s leave and went in search of someone who could instruct him about moksha.”’