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SANATSUGATIYA
CHAPTER V 1
Page1
Grief and wrath, and avarice, desire, delusion, laziness, want of forgiveness, vanity, craving, friendship 2, censoriousness, and reviling others--these twelve great enormities are destructive of a man's life. These, O king of kings! attend on each and every man. Beset by these, a man, deluded in his understanding, acts sinfully. A man full of attachments, merciless, harsh (of speech), talkative, cherishing wrath in his heart, and boastful--these are the men of cruel qualities; (such) persons, even obtaining wealth, do not always enjoy (it) 3.
One whose thoughts are fixed on enjoyments, who is partial 4, proud 5, boastful when he makes a gift, miserly, and devoid of power 6, who esteems the group (of the senses), and who hates (his) wife--thus have been stated the seven (classes of) cruel persons of sinful dispositions. Piety, and truthfulness, and penance, and self-restraint, freedom from animosity, modesty, endurance, freedom from censoriousness, liberality, sacred learning, courage, forgiveness--these are the twelve great observances of a Brahmana.
Footnotes :
1. The whole of this chapter is wanting in one of our copies of Sankara's commentary. In the copy published in the Mahabharata (Madras edition) there is, however, this passage: 'Wrath &c. have been already explained, still there are some differences here and there, and those only are now explained.' The chapter is for the most part a repetition of what we have already had. For such repetitions cf. Brihadaranyaka. The same copy of Sankara's commentary gives this general statement of the object of this and the next chapter: 'The course of study of the science of the Brahman, in which knowledge is the principal thing, and concentration of mind &c. are subsidiary, has been. described. Now is described the course of study in which concentration of mind is principal, and knowledge subsidiary. The first mode consists in understanding the meaning of the word "you" by means of concentration of mind, and then identifying it with the Brahman by means of a study of the Upanishads; the second, in first intellectually understanding the identity of the individual self and Brahman, by such study of the Upanishads, and then realising the identity to consciousness by contemplation, &c. In both modes the fruit is the same, and the means are the same; and to show this, the merits and defects already stated are here again declared.' This explanation is verbatim the same in Nilakantha's commentary.
2. The original is 'pity,' which is explained to mean 'friendship' by Sankara and Nilakantha.
3. 'Owing to there being in it no enjoyment for the self,' says one p. 182 copy of Sankara's commentary. Another reading, which is in the Madras edition and in Nilakantha, may be rendered, 'even obtaining benefits, they do not respect one (from whom they obtain them).'
4. The commentary says the meaning is the same as that of the expression used in the corresponding place before, viz. one who prospers by injuring others.
5. One copy of Sankara's commentary takes this to mean one who thinks the not-self to be the self. I adopt the other meaning, however, as agreeing, with that of atimani, which is the reading of some copies instead of abhimani.
6. Nilakantha reads durbala and does not explain it.
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