Mahābhārata

M. N. Dutt: Bhishma said Regarding it is cited the old discourse that took place between Narada, and Asita-Devala.

M. N. Dutt: Once on a time Narada, seeing that foremost of intelligent men, viz., Devala of venerable years, seated at his ease, asked him about the origin and the destruction of all creatures.

M. N. Dutt: Narada said Whence, O Brahmana, has this universe, consisting of mobile and iminobile objects, been created? When, again, the all-embracing destruction sets in, into whom does it merge! Let your learned self describe this to me.

M. N. Dutt: are Those from which the Supreme Self, when the time comes, actuated by the desire of existence in various forms, creates all creatures, and said by persons conversant with objects to be the five essential principles.

M. N. Dutt: Time, moved by the Understanding, created other objects from them. He who says that there is anything else save these, says the untruth.

M. N. Dutt: Know, O Narada, that these five are eternal, indestructible, and without beginning and without end. With Kala as their sixth, these five essential ingredients naturally possessed of great power.

M. N. Dutt: Water, Ether, Earth, Air, and Fire,—these are those five principal elements. Forsooth, there is nothing higher or superior to these.

M. N. Dutt: The existence of nothing else can is inferred by any one agreeably to the conclusions of the Shrutis or arguments drawn from reason. If any one does hold the existence of anything else, then his assertion would, in sooth, be useless. Know that these six form all others. That of which are all these is called non-existent.

M. N. Dutt: These five, and Kala (or Jiva), the effects of past acts, and Ignorance,-these eight eternal essences are the causes of the birth and destruction of creatures.

M. N. Dutt: When creatures are destroyed it is into these that they merge; and when they are born, it is again from them that they do so. Indeed, after destruction, a creature resolves itself into those five elements.

M. N. Dutt: His body is made of earth; his ear is made of ether; his eye has light for it cause, his life is of air, and his blood is of water.

M. N. Dutt: The two eyes, the nose, the two ears, the skin, and the tongue, are the senses. These, the learned hold, exist for perception of their various objects.

M. N. Dutt: Seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting are the actions of the senses. The five senses, are connected with five objects in five ways. Know, by the inference of reason, their similitude of attributes.

M. N. Dutt: Form, scent, taste, touch, and sound, are the five properties that are perceived by the five senses in five different ways.

M. N. Dutt: These five properties, viz., form scent, taste, touch, and sound, are not really perceived by the senses, but it is the Soul that apprehends them through the senses.

M. N. Dutt: That which is called Faculty is superior to all the Superior to Mind is Understanding, and superior to Understanding is Soul. senses.

M. N. Dutt: At first a living creature perceives various objects through the senses. With Mind he reflects over them, and then with the help of Understanding, he arrives at certainty of knowledge. Endued with Understanding, one arrives at certainty of conclusions regarding objects perceived through the senses.

M. N. Dutt: The five senses, Faculty, Mind, and Understanding,-these are regarded as organs of knowledge by those conversant with the spiritual science.

M. N. Dutt: The hands, the feet, the anus, the inembrum virile, the mouth, form the five organs of actions.

M. N. Dutt: The mouth is spoken of as an organ of action because it contains the instrument of speech, and that of eating. The feet are organs of locomotion and the hands for doing various sorts of work.

M. N. Dutt: The anus and the membrum virile are two organs which exist for evacuation. The first is for evacuation of stools, the second for that of urine as also of the semen when one feels the influence of desire.

M. N. Dutt: Besides these, there is a sixth organ of action. It is called muscle. These then are the names of the six organs of action according to the book written on the subject. I have now described to you the names of all the organs of knowledge and of action, and all the attributes of the five elements.

M. N. Dutt: When on account of the organs being fatigued, they cease to discharge their respective functions, the owner of those organs, their action being suspended is said to sleep.

M. N. Dutt: If when the action of these organs is stopped, the action of the mind, does not cease, but on the other hand the mind continues to act, that state of Consciousness is called Dream.

M. N. Dutt: During wakefulness there are three states of the mind viz., that connected with Goodness, that with Darkness, and that with Ignorance. In dream also the mind is connected with the same three states. Those very states, when they appear is dreams, connected with pleasurable actions, are spoken highly of.

M. N. Dutt: Happiness, success, knowledge, and absence of attachment are the marks of the quality of Goodness. Whatever states are experienced by living creatures, as shown in acts, during their hours of wakefulness, reappear in memory during their hours of sleep when they dream. The passage of our ideas as they exist during wakefulness into those of dreams, and that of ideas as they exist in dreams into those of wakefulness, become directly perceptible in that state of consciousness which is called dreamless sleep. That is eternal, and that is desirable.

M. N. Dutt: There are five organs of knowledge, and five of action; with muscular power, mind, understanding, and faculty, and with also the three qualities of goodness, darkness and ignorance, the number, it has been said, comes up to seventeen. The eighteenth in the calculation is he who owns the body. Indeed, he who lives in this body is eternal.

M. N. Dutt: All those seventeen (with Avidya or nesciene as eighteenth) living in the body, exist attached to him who owns the body. When the owner disappear from the body, those eighteen cease to live together in the body.

M. N. Dutt: Or, this body made up the five principal elements only a combination. The eighteen attributes, with him that owns the body, and counting stomachic heat numbering twentieth, form that which is known as the Combination of the Five.

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

M. N. Dutt: There is a Being called Mahat (principal of greatness) which, with the help of the wind (called Prana), keeps up this combination containing the twenty ihings that have been named, and in the matter of the destruction of that body the wind is only the instrument in the hands of that same Mahat.

M. N. Dutt: Whatever creature is born is resolved once more into the five principal elements upon the exhaustion of his merits and demerits; and moved again by the merits and demerits acquired in that life enters into another body resulting from his deeds.

M. N. Dutt: His habitation always resulting from nescience, desire, and acts, he migrates from body to body, leaving off one after another repeatedly, urged on by Time, like a person leaving house after in succession.

M. N. Dutt: The wise, wise, gifted with certainty of knowledge, do not yield to grief upon seeing this. Only the foolish, erroneously supposing relationships indulge in grief on seeing such changes of habitation.

M. N. Dutt: This individual soul is no one's relation; there is none again that may be said to belong to him. He is always alone, and he is himself the creator of his own body and his own happiness and misery.

M. N. Dutt: This individual is never born, nor does he ever die. Freed from the fetters of body, he succeeds sometimes in acquiring the highest end.

M. N. Dutt: Deprived of body, because freed through the dissipation of acts from bodies that are the outcome of merits and demerits, individual at last attains to Brahma.

M. N. Dutt: For the dissipation of both merits and demerits, Knowledge has been described as the cause in the Sankhya school. Upon the dissipation of merit and demerit, when individual soul attains to the status of Brahma, the learned behold the attainment of individual soul to the highest end.