Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 2

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Helen M Johnson
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

Page 30

PREVIOUS INCARNATION AS VIMALAVĀHANA
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because he sips the strong liquor of love for the objects of the senses? In old age, when a man's body is without power to acquire the three objects of existence, the rest of his life passes in vain, as if he were asleep. Even when he knows this, a man struggles for existence alone, eager for the enjoyment of sense-objects, like a sick man struggling voluntarily for disease. If a man would strive for salvation, as he strives for sense-objects in youth, what then would be lacking ?
A man, alas ! surrounds himself by self-made snares of karma, like a spider with webs made from its own saliva.14 In existence a human birth is attained with difficulty as a result of merit, like the entrance of the yoke-pin into the yoke in the ocean.15 In it also the birth of a man in the Ārya-countries is gained, and the attainment of a high family, and the attendance in a teacher's house for study. Whoever has acquired all this and does not strive for emancipation remains hungry when a meal is prepared. Both high and low conditions of existence being at their disposal here, generally foolish people seek a low level, like water. Carrying the thought, ‘At the right time I shall promote the welfare of my soul,' a man is reached by the messengers of Yama who come to meet him like robbers in a forest. Though he has avoided sin, a man is overpowered and led away by Death, even while those whom he would cherish look on, like a poor man without protection. Then, led to hell, he experiences endless pain. Men's karma follows them into another birth, like a debt.
One's own idea, 'She is my mother; he is my father ; he is my brother; he is my son,' is wrong. Not even the body is one's own. There is nothing but a halt in one place of those who have come here from different places, like that of birds in a tree. Then people go elsewhere to
14 53. The spider does not spin its web from saliva, but from a secretion from abdominal glands.
16 54. I have not found any parallel for this rather unusual simile, but the yoke-pin seems to represent the soul.