and leads to hell. One whose period of
life has run out cannot be rescued by anybody. Similarly, one whose
period of life has not been exhausted can never be slain by any
one.[1547] One should prevent one's affectionate seniors from doing unto
one (for one's benefit) such acts as are done by menials, as also all
such acts as are fraught with injury to others. One should never desire
to extend one's own life by taking the lives of others.[1548] When they
lay down their lives, it is laudable for all householders observant of
the duties of men living in sacred places to lay down their lives on the
banks of sacred streams.[1549] When one's period of life becomes
exhausted, one dissolves away into the five elements. Sometimes this
occurs suddenly (through accidents) and sometimes it is brought about by
(natural) causes.[1550] He who, having obtained a body, brings about its
dissolution (in a sacred place by means of some inglorious accident),
becomes invested with another body of a similar kind. Though set on the
path of the Emancipation, he yet becomes a traveller and attains to
another body like a person repairing from one room into another.[1551] In
the matter of such a man's attainment of a second body (notwithstanding
his death in a sacred spot) the only cause is his accidental death. There
is no second cause. That new body which embodied creatures obtain (in
consequence of the accidental character of their deaths in sacred places)
comes into existence and becomes attached to Rudras and Pisachas.[1552]
Learned men, conversant with Adhyatma, say that the body is a
conglomeration of arteries and sinews and bones and much repulsive and
impure matter and a compound of (primal) essences, and the senses and
objects of the senses born of desire, all having an outer cover of skin
close to them. Destitute (in reality) of beauty and other
accomplishments, this conglomeration, through force of the desires of a
previous life, assumes a human form.[1553] Abandoned by the owner, the
body becomes inanimate and motionless. Indeed, when the primal
ingredients return to their respective natures, the body mingles with the
dust. Caused by its union with acts, this body reappears under
circumstances determined by its acts. Indeed, O ruler of the Videhas,
under whatever circumstances this body meets with dissolution, its next
birth, determined by those circumstances, is seen to enjoy and endure the
fruits of all its past acts. Jiva, after dis