The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Khamkoo

SECTION CCXII
“Bhishma said, „Persons engaged in the practice of acts regard the practice of
acts highly. Similarly, those that are devoted to Knowledge do not regard
anything other than Knowledge. Persons fully conversant with the Vedas and
depending upon the utterances contained in them, are rare. They that are more
intelligent desire the path of abstention from acts as the better of the two, viz.,
heaven and emancipation.[727] Abstention from acts is observed by those that
are possessed of great wisdom. That conduct, therefore, is laudable. The
intelligence which urges to abstention from acts, is that by which one attains to
Emancipation. Possessed of body, a person, through folly, and endued with
wrath and cupidity and all the propensities born of Passion and Darkness,
becomes attached to all earthly objects. One, therefore, who desires to destroy
one‟s connection with the body, should never indulge in any impure act. On the
other hand, one should create by one‟s acts a path for attaining to emancipation,
without wishing for regions of felicity (in the next world).[728] As gold, when
united with iron, loses its purity and fails to shine, even so Knowledge, when
existing with attachment to earthly objects and such other faults, fails to put forth
its splendour.[729] He who, influenced by cupidity and following the dictates of
desire and wrath, practises unrighteousness, transgressing the path of
righteousness, meets with complete destruction.[730] One who is desirous of
benefiting oneself should never follow, with excess of attachments, earthly
possessions represented by the objects of the senses. If one does it, wrath and
joy—and sorrow arise from one another (and make one miserable). When every
one‟s body is made up of the five original elements as also of the three attributes
of Goodness, Passion, and Darkness, whom shall one adore and whom shall
one blame with what words? Only they that are fools become attached to the
objects of the senses. In consequence of folly they do not know that their bodies
are only modifications.[731]
As a house made of earth is plastered over with earth, even so this body which is
made of earth is kept from destruction by food which is only a modification of
earth. Honey and oil and milk and butter and meat and salt and treacle and grain
of all kinds and fruit and roots are all modifications of earth and water. Recluses
living in the wilderness, giving up all longing (for rich and savoury food), take
simple food, that is again unsavoury, for only supporting the body. After the same
manner, a person that dwells in the wilderness of the world, should be ready for
labour and should take food for passing through life, like a patient taking
medicine.[732] A person of noble soul, examining all things of an earthly nature
that come upon him, by the aid of truth, purity, candour, a spirit of renunciation,
enlightenment, courage, forgiveness, fortitude, intelligence, reflection, and
austerities, and desirous of obtaining tranquillity, should restrain his senses. All
creatures, stupefied, in consequence of Ignorance, by the attributes of Goodness
and Passion and Darkness, are continually revolving like a wheel. All faults,
therefore, that are born of Ignorance, should be closely examined and the idea of
Self which has its origin in Ignorance, and which is productive of misery, should
Mahabharta of Krishna Dwipayana Vyasa, translated to English by Kesarimohan Ganguli
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