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make gifts of food, having earned it by lawful means. The householder should always seek to eat after having made a gift of |
food unto a Brahmana. Every man should make the day fruitful by making gifts of food.[518] A person by feeding, O king, a |
thousand Brahmanas all of whom are conversant with duties and the scriptures and the sacred histories, has not to go to Hell |
and to return to this world for undergoing rebirths. Endued with the fruition of every wish, he enjoys great felicity hereafter. |
Possessed of such merit, he sports in happiness, freed from every anxiety, possessed of beauty of form and great fame and |
endued with wealth. I have thus told thee all about the high merit of gifts of food. Even this is the root of all righteousness and |
merit, as also of all gifts, O Bharata!'" |
SECTION CXIII |
"Yudhishthira said, 'Abstention from injury, the observance of the Vedic ritual, meditation, subjugation of the senses, |
penances, and obedient services rendered to the preceptors,--which amongst these is fraught with the greatest merit with |
respect to a person?' |
"Vrihaspati said, All these six are fraught with merit. They are different doors of piety. I shall discourse upon them presently. |
Do thou listen to them, O chief of the Bharatas! I shall tell thee what constitutes the highest good of a human being. That man |
who practises the religion of universal compassion achieves his highest good. That man who keeps under control the three |
faults, viz., lust, wrath, and cupidity, by throwing them upon all creatures (and practises the virtue of compassion), attains to |
success[519]. He who, from motives of his own happiness, slays other harmless creatures with the rod of chastisement, never |
attains to happiness, in the next world. That man who regards all creatures as his own self, and behaves towards them as |
towards his own self, laying aside the rod of chastisement and completely subjugating his wrath, succeeds in attaining to |
happiness. The very deities, who are desirous of a fixed abode, become stupefied in ascertaining the track of that person who |
constitutes himself the soul of all creatures and looks upon them all as his own self, for such a person leaves no track |
behind.[520] One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one's own self. This, in brief, is the rule of |
Righteousness. One by acting in a different way by yielding to desire, becomes guilty of unrighteousness. In refusals and gifts, |
in happiness and misery, in the agreeable, and the disagreeable, one should judge of their effects by a reference to one's own |
self.[521] When One injures another, the injured turns round and injures the injurer. Similarly, when one cherishes another, |
that other cherishes the cherisher. One should frame one's rule of conduct according to this. I have told thee what |
Righteousness is even by this subtile way.' |
"Vaisampayana continued, 'The preceptor of the deities, possessed of great intelligence, having said this unto king |
Yudhishthira the just, ascended upwards for proceeding to Heaven, before our eyes.'" |
SECTION CXIV |
"Vaisampayana said, 'After this, king Yudhishthira, endued with great energy, and the foremost of eloquent men, addressed his |
grandsire lying on his bed of arrows, in the following words.' |
"Yudhishthira said, 'O thou of great intelligence, the Rishis and Brahmanas and the deities, led by the authority of the Vedas, |
all applaud that religion which has compassion for its indication. But, O king, whet I ask thee is this: how does a man, who has |
perpetrated acts of injury to others in word, thought and deed, succeed in cleansing himself from misery?' |
"Bhishma said, 'Utterers of Brahma have said that there are four kinds of compassion or abstention from injury. If even one of |
those four kinds be not observed, the religion of compassion, it is said, is not observed. As all four-footed animals are |
incapable of standing on three legs, even so the religion of compassion cannot stand if any of those four divisions or parts be |
wanting. As the footprints of all other animals are engulfed in those of the elephant, even so all other religions are said to be |
comprehended in that of compassion. A person becomes guilty of injury through acts, words and thoughts[522]. Discarding it |
mentally at the outset, one should next discard in word and thought. He who, according to this rule, abstains from eating meat |
is said to be cleansed in a threefold way. It is heard that utterers of Brahma ascribe to three causes (the sin of eating meat). That |
sin may attach to the mind, to words, and to acts. It is for this reason that men of wisdom who are endued with penances refrain |
from eating meat. Listen to me, O king, as I tell thee what the faults are that attach to the eating of meat. The meat of other |
animals is like the flesh of one's son. That foolish person, stupefied by folly, who eats meat is regarded as the vilest of human |
beings. The union of father and mother produces an offspring. After the same manner, the cruelty that a helpless and sinful |
wretch commits, produces its progeny of repeated rebirths fraught with great misery. As the tongue is the cause of the |
knowledge or sensation of taste, so the scriptures declare, attachment proceeds from taste.[523] Well-dressed, cooked with salt |
or without salt, meat, in whatever form one may take it, gradually attracts the mind and enslaves it. How will those foolish men |
that subsist upon meat succeed in listening to the sweet music of (celestial) drums and cymbals and lyres and harps? They who |
eat meat applaud it highly, suffering themselves to be stupefied by its taste which they pronounce to be something |
inconceivable, undescribable, and unimaginable. Such praise even of meat is fraught with demerit. In former days, many |
righteous men, by giving the flesh of their own bodies, protected the flesh of other creatures and as a consequence of such acts |
of merit, have proceeded to heaven. In this way, O monarch the religion of compassion is surrounded by four considerations. I |
have thus declared to thee that religion which comprises all other religions within it.'" |
SECTION CXV |
"Yudhishthira said, 'Thou hast told it many times that abstention from injury is the highest religion. In Sraddhas, however, that |
are performed in honour of the Pitris, persons for their own good should make offerings of diverse kinds of meat. Thou hast |
said so while discoursing formerly upon the ordinances in respect of Sraddhas. How can meat, however, be procured without |
slaying a living creature? Thy declarations, therefore, seem to me to be contradictory. A doubt has, therefore, arisen in our |
mind respecting the duty of abstaining from meat. What are the faults that one incurs by eating meat, and what are the merits |
that one wins? What are the demerits of him who eats meat by himself killing a living creature? What are the merits of him |
who eats the meat of animals killed by others? What the merits and demerits of him who kills a living creature for another? Or |
of him who eats meat buying it of others? I desire, O sinless one, that thou shouldst discourse to me on this topic in detail. I |
desire to ascertain this eternal religion with certainty. How does one attain to longevity? How does one acquire strength? How |
does one attain to faultlessness of limbs? Indeed, how does one become endued with excellent indications? |
"Bhishma said, 'Listen to me, O, scion of Kuru's race, what the merit is that attaches to abstention from meat. Listen to me as I |
declare to thee what the excellent ordinances, in truth, are on this head. Those high-souled persons who desire beauty, |
faultlessness of limbs, long life, understanding, mental and physical strength, and memory, should abstain from acts of injury. |
On this topic, O scion of Kuru's race, innumerable discourses took place between the Rishis. Listen, O Yudhishthira, what their |
opinion was. The merit acquired by that person, O Yudhishthira, who, with the steadiness of a vow, adores the deities every |
month in horse-sacrifices, is equal to his who discards honey and meat. The seven celestial Rishis, the Valakhilyas, and those |
Rishis who drink the rays of the sun, endued with great wisdom, applaud abstention from meat. The Self-born Manu has said |
that that man who does not eat meat, or who does not slay living creatures, or who does not cause them to be slain, is a friend |
of all creatures. Such a man is incapable of being oppressed by any creature. He enjoys the confidence of all living beings. He |
always enjoys, besides, the approbation and commendation of the righteous. The righteous-souled Narada has said that that |
man who wishes to increase his own flesh by eating the flesh of other creatures, meets with calamity. Vrihaspati has said that |
that man who abstains from honey and meat acquires the merit of gifts and sacrifices and penances. In my estimation, these |
two persons are equal, viz., he who adores the deities every month in a horse-sacrifice for a space of hundred years and he who |
abstains from honey and meat. In consequence of abstention from meat one comes to be regarded as one who always adores the |
deities in sacrifices, or as one who always makes gifts to others, or as one who always undergoes the severest austerities. That |
man who having eaten meat gives it up afterwards, acquires merit by such an act that is so great that a study of all the Vedas or |
a performance, O Bharata, of all the sacrifices, cannot bestow its like. It is exceedingly difficult to give up meat after one has |
become acquainted with its taste. Indeed, it is exceedingly difficult for such a person to observe the high vow of abstention |
from meat, a vow that assures every creature by dispelling all fear. That learned person who giveth to all living creatures the |
Dakshina of complete assurance comes to be regarded, without doubt, as the giver of life-breaths in this world.[524] Even this |
is the high religion which men of wisdom applaud. The life-breaths of other creatures are as dear to them as those of one's to |
one's own self. Men endued with intelligence and cleansed souls should always behave towards other creatures after the |
manner of that behaviour which they like others to observe towards themselves. It is seen that even those men who are |
possessed of learning and who seek to achieve the highest good in the form of Emancipation, are not free from the fear of |
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