Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 3

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

Page 182

SRI DHARMANĀTHACARITRA
153
One should reflect at one eager to strike him down, 'There is destruction of our life in any case). So he, fearless of evil, commits the killing of a dead man. If you do not feel anger at anger, which is the thief of all the objects of existence, shame on your feeling anger at another guilty of a little crime. Then a wise man should overcome the great serpent of anger which fatigues all the senses, creeping along, by the snake-charm of forbearance.
Conceit (255–271) Conceit is destructive of three things—reverence, learning, and good conduct, injures the eye of discernment, makes men blind. Feeling pride in caste, wealth, family, power, strength, beauty, penance, and learning, a person gets the same in low degree in another birth.207 What wise man, indeed, feels pride in caste, after seeing the numerous divisions of caste, high, low, and medium ? One obtains high caste from karma; one obtains low caste from karma. Who, indeed, can be proud, because he has obtained transitory caste in that case ?
Wealth comes only from destruction of obstructive (antarāya) karma, not otherwise. Knowing the truth about wealth, one should not show pride in it. Noble persons do not at all fall into pride in wealth even in the case of great wealth arising from the favor of others, power,
et cetera.
Pride in family must not be felt even by those born in a high family when they observe that low-born persons also possess knowledge, wealth, and good conduct. What has family to do with bad conduct, or with good conduct ? Knowing this, a discriminating person would not feel pride in family.
After hearing of Indra's wealth of power over the three worlds, what kind of pride is there in power over cities,
207 256. That is, the penalty for pride in high caste is low caste in another birth, et cetera.