Zend Avesta Part 01

SR No.: 007671
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1895
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1982

CHAPTER XVIII, 51.
127
dexterity', not slinking away from battle, gifts, exercise of lordly power, this is the natural duty of Kshatriyas. Agriculture, tending cattle, trade, (this) is the natural duty of Vaisyas. And the natural duty of Sudras, too, consists in service. (Every) man intent on his own respective duties obtains perfection! Listen, now, how one intent on one's own duty obtains perfection. Worshipping, by (the performance of) his own duty, him from whom all things proceed, and by whom all this is permeated, a man obtains perfection. One's duty, though defective, is better than another's duty well performed. Performing the duty prescribed by nature, one does not incur sin. O son of Kunti! one should not abandon a natural duty though tainted with evil; for all actions are enveloped by evil, as fire by smoke One who is self-restrained, whose understanding is unattached everywhere, from whom affections have departed, obtains the supreme perfection of freedom from action • by renunciation. Learn from me, only in brief, O son of Kunti! how one who has obtained perfection attains the Brahman, which is the highest culmination of knowledge. A man possessed of a pure understanding, controlling his self by courage, discarding sound and other objects of sense, casting off
' I.e. in battle, Nilakansha seems to say. Sankara says it means ready resource whenever occasion arises.
'l.e. power to restrain people from going astray,' Nilakantha. · Eligibility for the path of knowledge. • Cf. p. 56.
• Cl. p. 121; the evil appears to be the quality of 'settering' the soul.
• Sildhara compares p. 65 (V, 13) and distinguishes this from A 64 (V, 8 seq.) Sankara says the perfection bere spoken of is emancipation, and it is obtained by true knowledge.
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