Verse 6.61

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

अवेक्षेत गतीर्नॄणां कर्मदोषसमुद्भवाः ।
निरये चैव पतनं यातनाश्च यमक्षये ॥ ६१ ॥

avekṣeta gatīrnṝṇāṃ karmadoṣasamudbhavāḥ |
niraye caiva patanaṃ yātanāśca yamakṣaye || 61 ||

He should reflect upon the conditions of men, arising from the defects of their deeds, their falling into hell and their sufferings in the abode of the death-god.—(61)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

What is stated here is a mode of meditating upon the Supreme Truth, consisting in the noting of the fact that birth and rebirth abound in pain.

Finding that life in the world abounds in sufferings caused by the separation from friends, relations, sons and wife and the loss of wealth &c., how could the man voluntarily go on undergoing the physical troubles of wandering about, begging for alms and so forth?

The ‘conditions’ of men abound in pain and result from the defects of their actions,—from their doing what is forbidden; e.g., such acts as doing injury to living beings, stealing, adultery, cruelty, back-biting, improper intentions and so forth. Or ‘conditions’ may stand for what the man undergoes in the world of the living itself,—in the shape of sorrows resulting from poverty, disease, ill-treatment and so forth.

As regards the other world, there is ‘falling into hell’—i.e., being born as worms and insects in places filled with urine, ordure and dirt &c.

‘Sufferings in the abode of the death-god’—in the form of Kumbhīpāka and other hells.

Something more has to be reflected upon (and this is pointed out in the next verse).—(61)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in Aparārka (p. 968), which explains ‘Yamakṣaye’ as ‘in Yama’s abode’;—and in Yatidharmasaṅgraha (p. 34).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Viṣṇu (96.36, 38).—‘He shall reflect upon the anxieties arising in youth from not obtaining the objects of pleasure, and upon the abode in hells awarded as punishment for enjoying them after they have been obtained unlawfully; and on the fearful agonies of hell.’

Yājñavalkya (3.63, 64).—‘He should reflect upon residence in the womb, as also the sufferings brought about by one’s own acts, mental agonies, physical ailments and other troubles, decrepitude, bodily deformities, birth and rebirth during thousands of lives, and vicissitudes of pleasure and pain.’