s
alone, and he himself creates his own body and his own happiness and
misery. This Jiva is never born, nor doth he ever die. Freed from the
bond of body, he succeeds sometimes in attaining to the highest end.
Deprived of body, because freed through the exhaustion of acts from
bodies that are the results of merits and demerits, Jiva at last attains
to Brahma. For the exhaustion of both merits and demerits, Knowledge has
been ordained as the cause in the Sankhya school. Upon the exhaustion of
merit and demerit, when Jiva attains to the status of Brahma,[1319] (they
that are learned in the scriptures) behold (with the eye of the
scriptures) the attainment of Jiva to the highest end.'"'"

SECTION CCLXXVI

"'Yudhishthira said, "Cruel and sinful that we are, alas, we have slain
brothers and sires and grandsons and kinsmen and friends and sons. How, O
grandsire, shall we dispel this thirst for wealth. Alas, through that
thirst we have perpetrated many sinful deeds."

"'Bhishma said, "In this connection is cited the old narrative of what was
said by the ruler of the Videhas unto the enquiring Mandavya. The ruler
of the Videhas said, 'I have nothing (in this world), yet I live in great
happiness. If the whole of Mithila (which is said to be my kingdom) burn
in a conflagration, nothing of mine will be burnt down. Tangible
possessions, however valuable, are a source of sorrow to men of
knowledge; while possessions of even little value fascinate the
foolish.[1320] Whatever happiness exists here, derivable from the
gratification of desire, and whatever heavenly happiness exists of high
value, do not come up to even a sixteenth part of the felicity that
attends the total disappearance of desire. As the horns of a cow grow
with the growth of the cow itself, after the same manner the thirst for
wealth increases with increasing acquisitions of wealth. Whatever the
object for which one feels an attachment, that object becomes a source of
pain when it is lost. One should not cherish desire. Attachment to desire
leads to sorrow. When wealth has been acquired, one should apply it to
purposes of virtue. One should even then give up desire.[1321] The man of
knowledge always looks upon other creatures even as he looks upon
himself. Having cleansed his soul and attained to success, he casts off
everything here.[1322] By casting off both truth and falsehood, grief and
joy, the agreeable and disagreeable, fearlessness and fear, one attains