ng once tripped, the
sinner restrains himself and engages to do acts of righteousness.'

627. What is stated here is this: the condition of all living creatures
is determined by their acts of this and past lives. Nature, again, is
the cause of acts. What of felicity and misery, therefore, one sees in
this world, must be ascribed to these two causes. As regards the self
also, O Yudhishthira, thou art not freed from that universal law. Do
thou, therefore, cease to cherish doubts of any kind. If thou seest a
learned man that is poor, or an ignorant man that is wealthy, if thou
seest exertion failing and the absence of exertion leading to success,
thou must always ascribe the result to acts and Nature.

628. What is stated here is this: one may become righteous by
accomplishing oneself righteous deeds or inducing or helping others to do
them. Similarly, one becomes unrighteous by doing oneself acts that are
evil or by inducing or helping others to do them.

629. Righteousness leads to regions of felicity. The former is said to be
eternal, while the latter are not so. The question asked (or doubt
raised) is why is the effect not eternal when the cause is eternal? It is
explained below.

630. There are two kinds of Righteousness, viz., nishkama and sakama. The
former leads to attainment of Brahma, the latter to heaven and felicity.
Brahma is eternal; the latter not so. Nishkama Righteousness being
eternal, leads to an eternal reward. Sakama Righteousness not being so,
does not lead to an eternal reward. The word Kala here means Sankalpa,
hence Dhruvahkalah means nishkama Dharma.

631. Here, Calah means 'Sankalpa'.

The Mahabharata

of

Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

BOOK 14

ASWAMEDHA PARVA

Translated into English Prose from the Original Sanskrit Text

by

Kisari Mohan Ganguli

[1883-1896]

Scanned at sacred-texts.com, January 2004. Proofed by John Bruno Hare.

THE MAHABHARATA

ASWAMEDHA PARVA

SECTION I

(Aswamedhika Parva)

OM! HAVING BOWED down unto Narayana, and Nara the foremost of male
beings, and unto the goddess Saraswati, must the word Jaya be uttered.

"Vaisampayana said, 'After the king Dhritarashtra had offered libations
of water (unto the manes of Bhisma), the mighty-armed[1] Yudhishthira,
with his senses bewildered, placing the former in his front, ascended the
banks (of the river), his eyes suffused with tears, and dropt down on the
bank of the Ganga like an elephan