lied, 'The relative merits of these virtues, truth and
alms-giving, kind speech and abstention from injury to any creature, are
known (measured) by their objective gravity (utility). Truth is
(sometimes) more praiseworthy than some acts of charity; some of the
latter again are more commendable than true speech. Similarly, O mighty
king, and lord of the earth, abstention from doing injury to any creature
is seen to be important than good speech and vice-versa. Even so it is, O
king, depending on effects. And now, if thou hast anything else to ask,
say it all, I shall enlighten thee!' Yudhishthira said, 'Tell me, O
snake, how the incorporal being's translation to heaven, its perception
by the senses and its enjoyment of the immutable fruits of its actions
(here below), can be comprehended.' The snake replied, 'By his own acts,
man is seen to attain to one of the three conditions of human existence,
of heavenly life, or of birth in the lower animal kingdom. Among these,
the man who is not slothful, who injures no one and who is endowed with
charity and other virtues, goes to heaven, after leaving this world of
men. By doing the very contrary, O king, people are again born as men or
as lower animals. O my son, it is particularly said in this connection,
that the man who is swayed by anger and lust and who is given to avarice
and malice falls away from his human state and is born again as a lower
animal, and the lower animals too are ordained to be transformed into the
human state; and the cow, the horse and other animals are observed to
attain to even the divine state.'[43] O my son, the sentient being,
reaping the fruits of his actions, thus transmigrates through these
conditions; but the regenerate and wise man reposes his soul in the
everlasting Supreme Spirit. The embodied spirit, enchained by destiny and
reaping the fruits of its own actions, thus undergoes birth after birth
but he that has lost touch of his actions, is conscious of the immutable
destiny of all born beings.[44]

"Yudhishthira asked, 'O snake, tell me truly and without confusion how
that dissociated spirit becomes cognisant of sound, touch, form, flavour,
and taste. O great-minded one, dost thou not perceive them,
simultaneously by the senses? Do thou, O best of snakes, answer all these
queries!' The snake replied, 'O long-lived one, the thing called Atman
(spirit), betaking itself to corporeal tenement and manifesting itself
through the organs of sense,