"'Yudhishthira said, "If there is any efficacy in gifts, in sacrifices, in
penances well-performed, and in dutiful services rendered to preceptors
and other reverend seniors, do thou, O grandsire, speak of the same to
me."
"'Bhishma said, "An understanding associated with evil causes the mind
to fall into sin. In this state one stains one's acts, and then falls
into great distress. Those that are of sinful acts have to take birth as
persons of very indigent circumstances. From famine to famine, from pain
to pain, from fear to fear, is their change. They are more dead than
those that are dead. Possessed of affluence, from joy to joy, from heaven
to heaven, from happiness to happiness, proceed they that are possessed
of faith, that are self-restrained, and that are devoted to righteous
deeds. They that are unbelievers have to pass, with groping hands,
through regions infested by beasts of prey and elephants and pathless
tracts teeming with snakes and robbers and other causes of fear. What
more need be said of these? They, on the other hand, that are endued with
reverence for gods and guests, that are liberal, that have proper regard
for persons that are good, and that make gifts in sacrifices, have for
theirs the path (of felicity) that belongs to men of cleansed and subdued
souls. Those that are not righteous should not be counted among men even
as grains without kernel are not counted among grain and as cockroaches
are not counted among birds. The acts that one does, follow one even when
one runs fast. Whatever acts one does, lie down with the doer who lays
himself down. Indeed, the sins one does, sit when the doer sits, and run
when he runs. The sins act when the doer acts, and, in fact follow the
doer like his shadow. Whatever the acts one does by whatever means and
under whatever circumstances, are sure to be enjoyed and endured (in
respect of their fruits) by the doer in his next life. From every side
Time is always dragging all creatures, duly observing the rule in respect
of the distance to which they are thrown and which is commensurate with
their acts.[1735] As flowers and fruits, without being urged, never
suffer their proper time to pass away without making their appearance,
even so the acts one has done in past life make their appearance at the
proper time. Honour and dishonour, gain and loss, destruction and growth,
are seen to set in. No one can resist them (when they come). One of them
is enduring, for disappear it must after appearance. The sorrows one
suffers is the result of one's acts. The happiness one enjoys flows from
one's acts. From the time when one lies within the mother's womb one
begins to enjoy and endure one's acts of a past life. Whatever acts good
and bad one does in childhood, youth, or old age, one enjoys and endures
their consequences in one's next life in similar ages. As the calf
recognises its dam even when the latter may stand among thousands of her
species, after the same manner the acts done by one in one's past life
come to one in one's next life (without any mistake) although one may live
among thousands of one's species. As a piece of dirty cloth is whitened
by being washed in water, after the same manner, the righteous, cleansed
by continuous exposure unto the fire of fasts and penances, at last
attain to unending happiness. O thou of high intelligence, the desires
and purposes of those whose sins have been washed off by long-continued
penances well-performed, become crowned with fruition. The track of the
righteous cannot be discerned even as that of birds in the sky or that
of fishes in the water. There is no need of speaking ill of others, nor
of reciting the instances in which others have tripped. On the other
hand, one should always do what is delightful, agreeable, and beneficial
to one's own self."'"[1736]