as their meed. You, who possess a distinguished
family name, and the reverence due to a great master, would generously
share your dignity with me, your worldly pleasures and amusements; I,
too, in return, for your sake, beseech you to share my reward with me;
he who indulges in the threefold kinds of pleasure, this man the world
calls 'Lord,' but this is not according to reason either, because these
things cannot be retained, but where there is no birth, or life, or
death, he who exercises himself in this way, is Lord indeed! You say
that while young a man should be gay, and when old then religious, but I
regard the feebleness of age as bringing with it loss of power to be
religious, unlike the firmness and power of youth, the will determined
and the heart established; but death as a robber with a drawn sword
follows us all, desiring to catch his prey; how then should we wait for
old age, ere we bring our mind to a religious life? Inconstancy is the
great hunter, age his bow, disease his arrows, in the fields of life and
death he hunts for living things as for the deer; when he can get his
opportunity, he takes our life; who then would wait for age? And what
the teachers say and do, with reference to matters connected with life
and death, exhorting the young, mature, or middle-aged, all to contrive
by any means, to prepare vast meetings for sacrifices, this they do
indeed of their own ignorance; better far to reverence the true law, and
put an end to sacrifice to appease the gods! Destroying life to gain
religious merit, what love can such a man possess? even if the reward of
such sacrifices were lasting, even for this, slaughter would be
unseemly; how much more, when the reward is transient! Shall we, in
search of this, slay that which lives, in worship? this is like those
who practise wisdom, and the way of religious abstraction, but neglect
the rules of moral conduct. It ill behooves us then to follow with the
world, and attend these sacrificial assemblies, and seek some present
good in killing that which lives; the wise avoid destroying life! Much
less do they engage in general sacrifices, for the purpose of gaining
future reward! the fruit promised in the three worlds is none of mine to
choose for happiness! All these are governed by transient, fickle laws,
like the wind, or the drop that is blown from the grass; such things
therefore I put away from me, and I seek for true escape. I hear there
is one O-lo-lam who e