Verse 4.240

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

एकः प्रजायते जन्तुरेक एव प्रलीयते ।
एकोऽनुभुङ्क्ते सुकृतमेक एव च दुष्कृतम् ॥ २४० ॥

ekaḥ prajāyate jantureka eva pralīyate |
eko'nubhuṅkte sukṛtameka eva ca duṣkṛtam || 240 ||

Alone is a creature born, and alone does it cease to be; alone it enjoys its good deeds and also its evil deeds.—(239)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

‘Each creature’—living being—‘is born alone,’—and not along with his friends and relations; and ‘alone does it cease to be;’ friends and relations do not die with him. Even when one’s wife, or some other devoted person, kills herself at the time of one’s death, this act of dying is different from that of the man’s own dying; and, by this act, the wife does not become born in the same womb with the husband, in the way in which Atri was born.

Similarly, his good and evil deeds also the man enjoys himself.

“It has been said that neither one’s wife nor one’s sons help him; hut, as a matter of fact, the son does help the father, by performing the śrāddha and other rites; and so the wife also.”

True; but all that this mentis is that such a dutiful son is horn only to a person who has acquired merit; and, just as during life, one is helped by another person who supports him by the hand, so also, when the man dies, his son helps him by means of religious acts.—(240)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in Aparārka (p. 232);—and in Vīramitrodaya (Paribhāṣā, p. 64).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Mahābhārata (Anuśāsana, 173.11).—‘O king, man is born alone, and alone he dies, alone by himself does he pass through difficulties, and by himself alone does he fall into misfortune.’