Chapter 126 - The Ultimate re-absorption

Vyāsa said:

1. After understanding the three types of suffering, O brahmins, beginning with the Ādhyātmika (i.e. the organic), a learned man realises perfect knowledge and has Vairāgya (detachment). He then attains the ultimate re-absorption.

2. The organic (suffering) is of two types, viz. the physical and the mental. The physical suffering is of various types. Let it be heard.

3-4. The physical suffering and ailment is of various types such as headache, cold, fever, fistula, enlargement of the spleen, piles, intumescence, asthma, nausea, ailment of the eyes, diarrhoea, leprosy, ailment of the limbs and many others. It behoves you to listen to the mental (suffering).

5-6. The suffering arising from love, anger, fear, hatred, greed, delusion and despondency, the attack of misery, jealousy, insult, envious impatience and spiteful malice—these are mental sufferings. O excellent brahmins, the mental suffering too is of various kinds. O excellent sages, they are different in these ways.

7. The Ādhibhautika (extraneous and material) suffering occurs to men from animals, birds, men, evil spirits, serpents, ogres, reptiles and other beings.

8. O excellent brahmins, the suffering arising from coldness, heat, winds, rains, water, lightning etc. is called Ādhidaivika.

9. O excellent sages, misery is of thousands of varieties arising from birth in the womb, old age, ignorance, death and (falling into) hell.

10. The creature in the womb is enveloped by faeces in plenty. Its back, neck and clusters of bones are broken.

11. It is excessively tormented by the scorching foodstuffs of its mother, of extremely pungent, sour, hot, bitter and saline taste. It suffers excessive pain.

12. It is unable to stretch or bend its limbs. It lies in the slough of faeces and urine. It is afflicted everywhere.

13. It gets suffocated. It is conscious. It remembers hundreds of births it has had. It stays in the womb in great misery as a result of its own actions.

14-15. At the time of delivery the child in the womb whose face is defiled by faeces, blood, urine and semen is excessively tormented by the wind Prājāpatya. His bones and joints are crushed. He is made to face down the powerful organic winds at the time of delivery. The child that is harassed thus manages to come out with difficulty from the womb of the mother.

16. On being touched by the external wind he attains an extremely senseless state. On being born, O excellent sages, he attains the loss of special knowledge (of the previous births).

17. His limbs are afflicted as it were by thorns. He is pierced and split as it were by saws. He is just like a worm that has fallen on the ground from a pus-discharging foul ulcer.

18. He is unable even to scratch himself. He is unable to turn on his sides. It is at the desire of others that he gets his food such as the milk from the mother’s breasts.

19. He is dirty. While he sleeps on his bed he is bitten by flies and worms, still he is unable to remove them.

20. (Thus) the miseries at the time of birth are many. Similarly those Ādhibhautika (extraneous and material) miseries too that he undergoes after his birth in the course of his childhood, are many.

21. As a man he is enveloped by the darkness of ignorance. His mind is deluded. He does not know: “Where have I come from?” “Whoam I?” “Where will I go?” “Of what nature am I?”

22. “By what bonds am I fettered?” “What is its cause?” “Is it without any cause?” “What should be done?” “What should not be done?” “What should be spoken?” “What should not be spoken?”

23. “What is good?” “What is evil?” “In what does it consist and how?” “What is our duty?” “What is it that we should refrain from?” “What is it that is meritorious?” “What is it that is faulty?”

24. Thus foolish men who like animals are given to sex and eating suffer great pain resulting from ignorance.

25. Ignorance is a Tāmasika trait. In the case of ignorant persons, although there is a predilection for the commencement of what should be done, yet there is the omission of duty, O brahmins.

26. Sages say that the result of omission of duty is (falling into) hell. Hence ignorant people experience excessive misery both here and hereafter.

27. Then, during old age man undergoes many miseries as follows: His body is shattered by old age. His limbs are enfeebled and flaccid. His teeth are broken and loose. He is covered by wrinkles and protruding sinews and neves and veins.

28. His eyes are incapable of seeing far off. His pupils are fixed to the sky. Clusters of hair come out of his nostrils. The whole of his body shakes and shivers.

29. His bones are laid bare. The bones at his back are bent. Since his gastric fire does not function, he takes but little food. He is capable of only a few movements.

30. He experiences difficulties in rising up, in moving about, in lying down, in sitting and in his movements. His eyes and ears become less keen. Saliva exudes from his mouth and defiles his face.

31. With his sense organs intractable he looks up to his early death. He is not capable of remembering anything experienced at the very same moment.

32. In uttering a sentence even once he has to put in great effort. He spends sleepless nights due to the strain of ailments such as asthma, bronchitis (cough) etc.

33. The old man has to be lifted up or laid to rest with the help of another man. He is disdained and insulted by his servants, sons and wife.

34. He is slack in maintaining cleanliness. He continues to have a great zeal in eating and sporting to the great derisive merriment of even servants. All his relatives are disgusted with him.

35. Remembering the activities of his own youth as though they were experienced in another birth he is all the more distressed. He then heaves deep sighs.

36. These and similar ones are the miseries he experiences in the old age. Now listen to those miseries which he experiences at the time of death.

37. His neck, legs and hands become loose. He is overwhelmed by (physical) trembling. Again and again he becomes despondent. Again and again he gains the support of his knowledge.

38. He is distressed due to his excessive fondness for gold, grain, sons, wife, servants, house etc. He becomes worried with the thought “What will befall to these?”

39. His bones and joints are tom and shorn as it were by great and terrible ailments like the saws that appear to be the arrows of the god of death. They pierce the vulnerable spots of his body.

40. The puplis of his eyes roll. He begins to beat and kick with his hands and feet. His palate, lips and throat become parched and he begins to snort and grumble.

41. The organic Udāna wind afflicts him by choking his throat. An excessive heat spreads over him. He becomes distressed due to thirst and hunger.

42. It is with great distress that the soul leaves the body. He is then afflicted by the servants of Yama. Thereafter with great distress and pain be adopts a Yātanādeha (the body for suffering the torture).

43. These and other similar ones are the miseries of men at the time of death. Now listen to those miseries which are experienced in hell by the persons who die.

44. The dead undergoes tortures in various ways. The servants of Yama catch him by means of noose etc. They strike him with sticks. The very sight of Yama is terrible. It is terrible to behold even the path (leading to Yama’s place).

45. O excellent brahmins, the tortures in different hells are different. They are terrible and the means employed are mud, sand, fire, mechanical devices, weapons etc.

46-49. The tortures of men in hell are as follows: They are tormented by saws. They are flown in the crucible. They are split by daggers. They are buried under the ground. They are impaled on pikes. They are cast into the jaws of a tiger. They are devoured by vultures and eaten by panthers. They are boiled in oil. They are drenched in slushy corrosive acid. They are cast down from a great height. They are thrown obliquely by mechanical discharging devices. The tortures experienced by sinners in hell are numerous, O brahmins.

50. It is not in hell alone, O excellent brahmins, that there is range of miseries. Even in heaven one has no peace of mind because one is afraid of a fall therefrom due to the decrease of meritorious deeds.

51. Again he becomes a foetus in the womb. The man is born again. Again he gets merged into the womb on being born. He then perishes.

52-53. Sometimes the child is still-born, sometimes the child dies (later) in childhood (or) in youth.

Whatever is pleasing to men, O brahmins, that alone becomes the seed of the tree of misery.

The pleasure brought about by wives, sons, friends etc., house, fields, wealth etc. is not so much as the unhappiness that they bring unto men.

54-57. Thus, men are mentally distressed by the fiery heat of the sun of worldly miseries. Excepting the shade of the tree of liberation where else can those men get happiness? The mass of misery is thus threefold and they afflict one in the womb, during conception, birth, old age etc. Learned men consider the ultimate attainment of the lord alone as the cure for these ills. This attainment of the lord is characterised by the feeling of happiness. There is no other source of delight higher than this.

Hence effort to attain it should be made by learned men.

58. O excellent brahmins, the means of attaining the same is said to be knowledge as well as holy rites. Knowledge is mentioned as twofold: 1) arising from scriptural texts and 2) arising from discrimination.

59-61. The Śabda Brahman (Brahman exemplified in words) is that arising from scriptural text. The Para Brahman (supreme Brahman) is that arising from discrimination.

Ignorance is like the pitch darkness. Knowledge arising from sense organs is like a lamp. Knowledge arising from discrimination, O brahmins, is like the sun.

O excellent sages, what Manu too has said after remembering the meaning of the Vedic Texts, let that be heard even as I say in this context.

“Two Brahmans are to be comprehended i.e. Śabda Brahman and Para Brahman.

62. One who is well-conversant with the Śabda Brahman attains the Para Brahman. The Atharva Veda says: “Two types of learning are to be undrstood”.

63-64. The attainment of the Akṣara (Imperishable) is by means of Parā Vidyā (the superior knowledge). The Aparā Vidyā (the subsidiary type of learning) is the mastery of Ṛgveda etc.

Know ye all that omnipresent eternal material cause of all beings, which is unmanifest, which has no old age, which is difficult to ponder over, which is unborn, which is devoid of change, which cannot be pointed out, which has no form, which does not possess hands, legs etc. and which has no other cause.

65. Every thing worthy of being pervaded is pervaded by it and poets see it. That is Brahman. That is the greatest abode. That should be meditated upon by those who desire liberation.

66-68. It is mentioned in the statements of the Vedas. It is subtle. It is the greatest region of Viṣṇu. He is called Bhagavān (Lord), who knows the origin and dissolution of living beings, the advent and departure of living beings as well as the Vidyā (Learning) and Avidyā (Ignorance).

The following are denoted by the word Bhagavān: knowledge, power, potentiality, ability to rule, vigour and all types of splendour except those qualities etc. that are to be despised and discarded.

All the living beings reside in the supreme soul.

69-70. Hence Vāsudeva is named Sarvātman, the soul of all. Prajāpati (Brahmā) mentioned this formerly. to the sages when he was asked to comment upon the names of Vāsudeva, the endless, truthfully. Since the lord abides in the living beings and the living beings abide in him, he, Vāsudeva, is the creator and dispenser of the worlds. He is the supreme lord.

71. He is Saguṇa (having attributes) and transcends all beings, Prakṛti, Guṇas and Doṣas (merits and demerits). Since the entire inside of the universe is enveloped by him, he is Akhilātman (soul of all). He transcends all other coverings.

72. He is possessed of all splendid qualities. With a small portion of his power be maintains the creation of all living beings. Voluntarily he assumes a large physical body of his choice. He accomplishes everything that is conducive to the welfare of the world.

73. He is the sole receptacle of his power, vigour and other qualities. He is greater than the greatest. There is no great obstacle unto his splendour, power and ability to rule. In the great lord than whom there is no greater lord there are no pains etc.

74. He is the lord named Parameśvara. He has both the individual and cosmic collective forms. His form is both manifest and unmanifest. He is the lord of all. He is the eye of all. He knows everything. He has all powers.

75. That whereby this pure, supreme single form (that is free from impurity and devoid of all defects) is comprehended, perceived or attained is Jñāna (knowledge). That which is other than this is Ajñāna (ignorance).