|
ANUGITA
CHAPTER II
Page1
Vasudeva 1 said :
Then grasping his feet, Kasyapa, asked questions very difficult to explain, and all of them that (being), the best of the supporters of piety, did explain.
Kasyapa said :
How does the body perish, and how, too, is it produced? How does one who moves in this harassing course of worldly life become freed? And (how) does the self, getting rid of nature, abandon the body (produced) from it 2? And how, being freed from the body, does he attain to the other 3? How does this man enjoy the good and evil acts done by himself? And where do the acts of one who is released from the body remain?
The Brahmana said :
Thus addressed, O descendant of Vrishni! that Siddha answered these questions in order. Hear me relate what (he said).
The Siddha said :
When those actions, productive of long life and fame 4, which a man performs here, are entirely exhausted, after his assumption of another body, he performs (actions of an) opposite character, his self being overcome at the exhaustion of life 5. And his ruin being impending, his understanding goes astray. Not knowing his own constitution, 6, and strength, and likewise the (proper) season, the man not being self-controlled, does unseasonably what is injurious to himself When he attaches himself to numerous very harassing (actions); eats too much 7, or does not eat at all; when he takes bad food, or meat 8.
Footnotes :
1. Sic in MSS.
2. Cf. as to getting rid of nature, Gita. As to the body produced from nature, cf. ibid, and infra.
3. I. e. the Brahman, says Nilakantha.
4. One reading omits 'fame,' as to which cf. Taittiriya-upanishad ; Khandogya. As to long life, cf. Khandogya; exhausted, i.e. by enjoyment of fruit in another world.
5. Cf. Sariraka Bhashya, where we have a slightly different view.
6. Arguna Misra renders the original, sattva, by svabhava.
7. Cf. for all this, Gita, which passages, however, are from a slightly different point of view. See also Khandogya.
8. A various reading here excludes meat. But cf. Âpastamba I, 1, 2, 23; Gautama II, 13.
|
