ve according to any of the four prescribed modes. I shall
tell thee particularly what the duties truly are of the four orders. So
far as their bodies are concerned, the individuals belonging to all the
four orders have the five primal elements for the constituent
ingredients. Indeed, in this respect, they are all of the same substance.
For all that, distinctions exist between them in respect of both
practices relating to life or the world and the duties of righteousness.
Notwithstanding these distinctions, sufficient liberty of action is left
to them in consequence of which all individuals may attain to an equality
of condition. The regions of felicity which represent the consequences or
rewards of Righteousness are not eternal, for they are destined to come
to an end. Righteousness, however, is eternal. When the cause is eternal,
why is the effect not so?[629] The answer to this is as follows. Only
that Righteousness is eternal which is not promoted by the desire of
fruit or reward. (That Righteous, however, which is prompted by the
desire of reward, is not eternal. Hence, the reward though undesired that
attaches to the first kind of Righteousness, viz., attainment of identity
with Brahman, is eternal. The reward, however, that attaches to that
Righteousness prompted by desire of fruit. Heaven is not eternal).[630]
All men are equal in respect of their physical organism. All of them,
again, are possessed of souls that are equal in respect of their nature.
When dissolution comes, all else dissolve away. What remains is the
inceptive will to achieve Righteousness. That, indeed, reappears (in next
life) of itself.[631] When such is the result (that is, when the
enjoyments and endurance of this life are due to the acts of a past
life), the inequality of lot discernible among human beings cannot be
regarded in any way anomalous. So also, it is seen that those creatures
that belong to the intermediate orders of existence are equally subject,
in the matter of their acts, to the influence of example."'"

SECTION CLXV

"Vaisampayana said, 'That perpetuator of Kuru's race, viz., Yudhishthira
the son of Pandu, desirous of obtaining such good as is destructive of
sins, questioned Bhishma who was lying on a bed of arrows, (in the
following words).'

"'Yudhishthira said, "What, indeed, is beneficial for a person in this
world? What is that by doing which one may earn happiness? By what may
one be cleansed of all one's sins? I