es, what fear can assail him? He who fears no creature and whom
no creature fears, can have no fear from any quarter, freed as he is from
error of every kind. As the footprints of all other creatures that move
upon legs are engulfed within those of elephants, after the same manner
all ranks and conditions are absorbed within Yoga[1027]. After the same
manner, every other duty and observance is supposed to be engulfed within
the one duty of abstention from injury (to all creatures).[1028] He lives
an everlasting life of felicity who avoids injuring other creatures. One
who abstains from injury, who casts an equal eye upon all creatures, who
is devoted to truth, who is endued with fortitude, who has his senses
under control, and who grants protection to all beings, attains to an end
that is beyond compare. The condition called death succeeds not in
transcending such a person who is content with self-knowledge, who is
free from fear, and who is divested of desire and expectancy. On the
other hand, such a person succeeds in transcending death. Him the gods
know for a Brahmana who is freed from attachments of every kind, who is
observant of penances, who lives like space which while holding
everything is yet unattached to any thing, who has nothing which he calls
his own, who leads a life of solitude, and whose is tranquillity of soul.
The gods know him for a Brahmana whose life is for the practice of
righteousness, whose righteousness is for the good of them that wait
dutifully upon him, and whose days and nights exist only for the
acquisition of merit.[1029] The gods know him for a Brahmana who is freed
from desire, who never exerts himself for doing such acts as are done by
worldly men, who never bends his head unto any one, who never flatters
another, (and who is free from attachments of every kind). All creatures
are pleased with happiness and filled with fear at the prospect of grief.
The man of faith, therefore, who should feel distressed at the prospect
of filling other creatures with grief, must abstain entirely from acts of
every kind.[1030] The gift of assurances of harmlessness unto all
creatures transcends in point of merit all other gifts. He who, at the
outset, forswears the religion of injury, succeeds in attaining to
Emancipation (in which or) whence is the assurance of harmlessness unto
all creatures.[1031] That man who does not pour into his open mouth even
the five or six mouthfuls that are laid down for the