CHAPTER XII
1. ‘O sinless One, the whole sacred law, (applicable) to the four castes, has been declared by thee; communicate to us (now), according to the truth, the ultimate retribution for (their) deeds.’
2. To the great sages (who addressed him thus) righteous Bhrigu, sprung from Manu, answered, ‘Hear the decision concerning this whole connexion with actions.’
3. Action, which springs from the mind, from speech, and from the body, produces either good or evil results; by action are caused the (various) conditions of men, the highest, the middling, and the lowest.
4. Know that the mind is the instigator here below, even to that (action) which is connected with the body, (and) which is of three kinds, has three locations, and falls under ten heads.
5. Coveting the property of others, thinking in one’s heart of what is undesirable, and adherence to false (doctrines), are the three kinds of (sinful) mental action.
6. Abusing (others, speaking) untruth, detracting from the merits of all men, and talking idly, shall be the four kinds of (evil) verbal action.
7. Taking what has not been given, injuring (creatures) without the sanction of the law, and holding criminal intercourse with another man’s wife, are declared to be the three kinds of (wicked) bodily action.
8. (A man) obtains (the result of) a good or evil mental (act) in his mind, (that of) a verbal (act) in his speech, (that of) a bodily (act) in his body.
9. In consequence of (many) sinful acts committed with his body, a man becomes (in the next birth) something inanimate, in consequence (of sins) committed by speech, a bird, or a beast, and in consequence of mental (sins he is re-born in) a low caste.
10. That man is called a (true) tridandin in whose mind these three, the control over his speech (vagdanda), the control over his thoughts (manodanda), and the control over his body (kayadanda), are firmly fixed.
11. That man who keeps this threefold control (over himself) with respect to all created beings and wholly subdues desire and wrath, thereby assuredly gains complete success.
12. Him who impels this (corporeal) Self to action, they call the Kshetragna (the knower of the field); but him who does the acts, the wise name the Bhutatman (the Self consisting of the elements).
13. Another internal Self that is generated with all embodied (Kshetragnas) is called Giva, through which (the Kshetragna) becomes sensible of all pleasure and pain in (successive) births.
14. These two, the Great One and the Kshetragna, who are closely united with the elements, pervade him who resides in the multiform created beings.
15. From his body innumerable forms go forth, which constantly impel the multiform creatures to action.
16. Another strong body, formed of particles (of the) five (elements and) destined to suffer the torments (in hell), is produced after death (in the case) of wicked men.
17. When (the evil-doers) by means of that body have suffered there the torments imposed by Yama, (its constituent parts) are united, each according to its class, with those very elements (from which they were taken).
18. He, having suffered for his faults, which are produced by attachment to sensual objects, and which result in misery, approaches, free from stains, those two mighty ones.
19. Those two together examine without tiring the merit and the guilt of that (individual soul), united with which it obtains bliss or misery both in this world and the next.
20. If (the soul) chiefly practises virtue and vice to a small degree, it obtains bliss in heaven, clothed with those very elements.
21. But if it chiefly cleaves to vice and to virtue in a small degree, it suffers, deserted by the elements, the torments inflicted by Yama.
22. The individual soul, having endured those torments of Yama, again enters, free from taint, those very five elements, each in due proportion.
23. Let (man), having recognised even by means of his intellect these transitions of the individual soul (which depend) on merit and demerit, always fix his heart on (the acquisition of) merit.
24. Know Goodness (sattva), Activity (ragas), and Darkness (tamas) to be the three qualities of the Self, with which the Great One always completely pervades all existences.
25. When one of these qualities wholly predominates in a body, then it makes the embodied (soul) eminently distinguished for that quality.
26. Goodness is declared (to have the form of) knowledge, Darkness (of) ignorance, Activity (of) love and hatred; such is the nature of these (three) which is (all-) pervading and clings to everything created.
27. When (man) experiences in his soul a (feeling) full of bliss, a deep calm, as it were, and a pure light, then let him know (that it is) among those three (the quality called) Goodness.
28. What is mixed with pain and does not give satisfaction to the soul one may know (to be the quality of) Activity, which is difficult to conquer, and which ever draws embodied (souls towards sensual objects).
29. What is coupled with delusion, what has the character of an undiscernible mass, what cannot be fathomed by reasoning, what cannot be fully known, one must consider (as the quality of) Darkness.
30. I will, moreover, fully describe the results which arise from these three qualities, the excellent ones, the middling ones, and the lowest.