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5. A New Way1 (Suyagaḍa I 2)
1.
1. Wake up properly! Why are you not waking up? When one [in fact] has passed away then waking up is truly difficult. The days (that are gone) will not come back again, one does. not easily obtain again [a] life [as a human]. 2. See, young and old people, yes even unborn ones, pass away. Just as the hawk seizes [and tears up] the partridge, so too one is destroyed when life comes to an end. (2) 3. By [staying with one's] father and mother one is lost, and when one has passed away, then one does not easily find a good form of existence. In view of these difficulties a faithful one should stop [an injurious] deed. 4. Namely, when the individual beings in the world perish through [injurious] action then they sink down on account of what they themselves [previously] did; they do not become free from it without having felt [its effect themselves]. 5. Gods, gandharva, räkṣasa, asura [princes], those who reside in the earth, snake [princes],' princes, officials, salesmen, brahmins: they themselves pass away in suffering." 6.In the course of time [all] human beings have to suffer what they have caused for themselves through [their own] desires and under foreign influence." Like a palm nut that falls from the stem, so one perishes when life comes to an end. 7. Even if one is highly educated [or] pious, a brahmin [or] a monk, he, deluded by the things that have caused' [him] deceit all around, will
Out of the fact that this poem is called vaitālīya according to its metre, one might have to assume its temporal or geographical unusualness. Whoever attaches importance to the pun on the name in the tradition, vaidārika "destructive", may understand the German title "Neue Weise [die Tatwirkung aufzuheben]": "A New Way [to neutralize the effect of a deed].'
2 See Appendix 4.
Evidently sirisiva represents the nagakumara because here otherwise only humans or beings similar to humans are mentioned. The word bhumi-cara can also be applied to them. (Bollée 1988, p. 31 does not accept Schubring's view of sirisiva. In the list here mahoraga is missing (WB).)
4 In raya nara-seṭṭhi-mahaṇa, nara may stand for *raya-nara = raya-purisa. Sil., however, has: naraḥ sāmānya-manuṣyaḥ; but here we need those in a high position.
5 See Herman 1986, p. 67 and Gopalan 1986, p. 138. For the suffering of gods before reincarnation see Bollée 2002, p. 175 (WB).
"To be construed: kamehi ya samthavehi ya [jam kayam] kamma[m tam-]saha. The word giddha is an interpolation and disturbs the metre; samthavehi literally means: "through their acquaintances". (See Bollée 1977, pp. 111 and 136 for samthava (WB).)
7
abhinüma-kaḍa abhinumena kṛta. abhi is like άupi, See Schubring 1905, p. 37.
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