Mahābhārata

M. N. Dutt: By acting how, O you who are conversant with all courses of conduct, did Janaka the king of Mithila, versed in the religion of Liberation, succeed in acquiring Liberation, after casting off all worldly enjoyments?

M. N. Dutt: “Regarding it is cited the following old narrative of the particular conduct by which that king, a master of all courses of conduct, succeeded in acquiring the highest happiness.

M. N. Dutt: There was a king in Mithila of the name of Janadeva of Janaka's race. He was ever engaged in thinking of the courses of conduct that might lead to the attainment of Brahma.

M. N. Dutt: One hundred preceptors always used to live in his palace, describing to him the various courses of duty followed by people who had adopted the various modes of life.

M. N. Dutt: Well read in the Vedas, he was not very well satisfied with the speculations of his instructors on the nature of the Soul, and in their teachings of his extinction upon the dissolution of the body or of re-birth after death.

M. N. Dutt: Once upon a time a great ascetic named Panchashikha the son of Kapila, having roamed over the whole world, arrived at Mithila.

M. N. Dutt: Having made conclusions about the diverse duties connected with renunciation, he was above all pairs of opposites, and had no doubts.

M. N. Dutt: He was considered as the foremost of Rishis. Living wherever he pleased, he wished to place before the reach of all men eternal happiness that is so difficult of attainment.

M. N. Dutt: It appeared that he roamed, amazing the world, having put on the form of none else then that great Rishi, that lord of creatures, whom the followers of the Sankhya doctrine knew by the name of Kapila.

M. N. Dutt: He was the greatest of all the disciples of Asuri and was called the undying. He had performed a mental Sacrifice lasting for a thousand years.

Corresponding verse not found in M. N. Dutt's version.

M. N. Dutt: He was firm in mind, and had performed all the rites and sacrifices that are enjoyed in the scriptures and that lead to the attainment of Brahma. He knew full well the five sacs that cover the Soul. He was devoted to the five acts regarding the adoration of Brahma, and had the five qualities. Know by the name of Panchashikha, he had approached one day a large assembly of Rishis following the Sankhya doctrines and enquired of them about the highest object of human acquisition, namely, the Unmanifest or that upon which the five sacs rest.

M. N. Dutt: For acquiring a knowledge of the Soul, Asuri had enquired of his preceptor. On account of the latter's instructions and of his own penances, Asuri understood the distinction between the body and the Soul and had gained celestial vision.

M. N. Dutt: In that assembly of ascetics, Asuri described the Immutable, One, and Indestructible Brahma which is seen in various forms.

M. N. Dutt: Panchashikha became a disciple of Asuri. He lived on human milk. There was a certain Brahman lady named Kapila. She was Asuri's wife.

M. N. Dutt: Panchashikha was accepted by her as a son and he used to suck her breasts. For this, he came to be known as the son of Kapila and his understanding became fixed on Brahma.

M. N. Dutt: The divine Rishi said to me, all this, regarding the circumstances of his birth and those about his becoming the son of Kapila. The latter also told me about the omniscience of Panchashikha.

M. N. Dutt: Knowing fully all the forms of duty, Panchashikha, after having himself gained high knowledge, (came to Janaka) and knowing that that king had equal reverence for all his preceptors, began to startle those hundred preceptors (by a very sensible exposition of his doctrine).

M. N. Dutt: Marking the genius of the son of Kapila, Janaka became exceedingly attacked to him, and abandoning his hundred preceptors, began to follow him.

M. N. Dutt: Then Kapila's son began to discourse to Janaka, who had according to the ordinance bent his head to him and who was fully competent to understand the sage's instructions, upon that great religion of Liberation which is explained in Sankhya treatises.

M. N. Dutt: Describing first of all the miseries of birth, he spoke next of the miseries of (religious) acts. Having finished that topic he explained the miseries of all states of existence ending even with that in the high region of the Creator.

M. N. Dutt: He also described that Delusion which beget the practice of religion, and acts, and their fruits, and which is highly untrustworthy, destructible, unsteady, and uncertain.

M. N. Dutt: Sceptics say that when death is seen directly by all, they who hold, on account of their faith in the scriptures, that something distinct from the body, called the Soul, exists, are necessarily defeated in argument.

M. N. Dutt: They also hold that one's Soul, and that sorrow, decrepitude, and disease indicate (partial) death of the Soul. He who holds owing to error, that the Soul is distinct from the body and exists after the loss of body, entertains an unreasonable opinion.

M. N. Dutt: If that is considered as existent which does not really exist in the world, then it may be mentioned that the king, being known so, is really never subject to decrepitude or death. But is he, therefore, to be really believed to be beyond decrepitude and death?

M. N. Dutt: When the question arises whether an object exists or not, and when that whose existence in asserted presents all the signs of non-existence, what is that upon which ordinary people depend in settling the affairs of life?

M. N. Dutt: Direct evidence is the basis of both inference and the scriptures. The scriptures can be contradicted by direct evidence. As to inference its evidence is not much.

M. N. Dutt: Do not reason on inference only whatever may be the subject. There is nothing else called individual soul than this body.

M. N. Dutt: The capacity to produce leaves, flowers, fruits, roots and bark lies in a banian seed. The grass and water that is taken by a cow produce milk and butter, substances differing in nature from that of the causes. Various substances when allowed to decompose in water for sometime produce spirituous liquors whose nature is quite different from that of those substances producing them. Likewise, from the vital seed in produced the body and its attributes with the understanding, consciousness, wood, and other qualities. Two pieces of wood, rubbed together, beget fire. Coming in contact with the rays of the Sun, the stone called Suryakanta begets fire. Any solid metal, heated in fire, dries up water when coming in contact with it. Likewise, the material body produces the mind and its attributes of perception, memory, imagination, etc. As the loadstone moves iron, likewise the . senses are controlled by the mind.

M. N. Dutt: Thus do the sceptics reason, who are, however, mistaken. The disappearance (of animation) upon the body becoming lifeless means death. The supplication of the gods by the very men who deny the separate existence of the Soul is another good argument (for the proposition that the Soul is separate from the body). Another argument against the sceptic is that his proposition argues a destruction of acts.

M. N. Dutt: These that have been mentioned and have material forms, cannot possible be the causes (of the immaterial Soul and its immaterial accompaniments). The identity of immaterial things with objects that are material cannot be comprehended.

M. N. Dutt: Some hold that there is re-birth which is caused by Ignorance, the desire for acts, cupidity, carelessness, and bent towards other vices.

M. N. Dutt: They say that Ignorance is the soil. Acts form the seed that is placed in that soil. Desire is the water that causes that seed to grow. In this manner they explained re-birth.

M. N. Dutt: They hold that ignorance being ingrained in an imperceptible way, one mortal body being destroyed, another originates at once from it; and that when it is consumed by the help of knowledge, the destruction of existence itself follows, or the person attains to what is called annihilation.

M. N. Dutt: This opinion also is mistaken, It may be asked that when the being that is thus re-bom is a different one in its nature, birth, and objects of virtue and vice, why should it then be considered to be identical with the being that was? Indeed, the only inference that can be made is that the entire chain of existences of a particular being is not really one of connected links.

M. N. Dutt: Then, again, if the being that is the outcome of a re-birth be really different from what it was in a pristine existence, it may be asked what satisfaction is to a person from the exercise of the spirit of charity, or from the acquisition of knowledge or of ascetic power, since the acts perforined by one are to bear fruits upon another person in another state of existence.

M. N. Dutt: Another refutation of the doctrine would be that one in this life may rendered miserable by the acts of another in a pristine life, or having become miserable may again become happy. By witnessing however, what actually takes place in the world, a proper conclusion may be drawn regarding the unseen.

M. N. Dutt: The separate Consciousness that is the outcome of re-birth is different from the Consciousness that had preceded it in a pristine existence. The way, however, in which the appearance of that separate Consciousness is explained by that theory is not at all consistent or reasonable. The Consciousness was the very opposite of eternal, being only transitory, extending as it did till dissolution of the body. That which had an end cannot be considered as the cause for the production of a second Consciousness appearing after the end. If again, the very very loss of of the previous Consciousness be considered as the cause of the production of the second Consciousness, then when the death of a human body is caused by a heavy bludgeon, a second body would originate from the body that is thus deprived of animation.

M. N. Dutt: Again, their doctrine of annihilation is subject to the objection that extinction will become a revolving phenomenon like that of the seasons, or the year, or the Yuga, or heat, or cold, or agreeable or disagreeable objects.

M. N. Dutt: If for avoiding these objections, the followers of this doctrine hold the existence of a Soul that is permanent and with which cach new Consciousness is attached, they again subject themselves to the new objection that that permanent substance, by being overcome with decrepitude, and with death that causes destruction, may in time be itself weakened and destroyed. If the supports of a palace are weakened by time, the mansion itself is sure to fall down in the end.

M. N. Dutt: The senses, the mind, wind, blood, flesh, bones, one after another, meet with destruction and enter each into its own productive causes.

M. N. Dutt: If again the existence of an eternal Soul is held which is immutable, which is the refuge of the understanding, consciousness, and other similar attributes, and which is dissociated from all these, such an assertion is subject to a serious objection for then all that is usually done in the world would be meaningless, especially with reference to the attaininent of the fruits of charity and other religious acts. All the injunctions in the Shrutis regarding those acts, and all acts connected with the conduct of in the world, would be equally men meaningless, for the Soul being dissociated form, the understanding and the mind, there is no one to enjoy the fruits of good acts and Vedic rites.

M. N. Dutt: Thus various sorts of speculations arise in the mind. Nothing can settle whether this opinion is right or that is right.

M. N. Dutt: Reflecting on these opinions, particular persons follow particular lines of speculation. The understanding of these, directed to particular theories become immersed and are at last entirely lost in them.

M. N. Dutt: Thus all men are made miserable by pursuits good or bad. Bringing them back to the right path, the Vedas alone, guide them along it, like grooms conducting their elephants.

M. N. Dutt: Many men, with weakened minds, seek objects of great happiness. These, however, have soon to meet with a larger quantity of SOITow, and then, alienated by force from their coveted mcat, they subject themselves to the sway of death.

M. N. Dutt: What has one, who is subject to destruction and whose life is fickle, to do with kinsmen and friends and wives and other like possessions? He who meets death after having relinquished all these, passes easily out of the world and has never to return.

M. N. Dutt: Earth, ether, water, heat, and wind, always keep up and nourish the body. Thinking of this, how can one feet any attachment for his body? Indeed, the body, which is subject to destruction, has no happiness in it.-Having heard these words Panchashikha that were shorn of deception, and delusion highly salutary, and treating of the Soul, king Janaka became filled with wonder, and prepared himself to address the Rishi once more.'