was endued,
besides, with scriptural learning and excellent conduct. Gratified with
Kasyapa, that Brahmana one day addressed him cheerfully and spoke as
follows, with an eye to the highest success. Listen to those words, O
Janarddana, as I repeat them.'

"'"The ascetic crowned with success said, 'By diverse acts, O son, as
also by the aid of merit, mortal creatures attain to diverse ends here
and residence in Heaven. Nowhere is the highest happiness; nowhere can
residence be eternal. There are repeated falls from the highest regions
acquired with such sorrow. In consequence of my indulgence in sin, I had
to attain to diverse miserable and inauspicious ends, filled as I was
with lust and wrath, and deluded by cupidity. I have repeatedly undergone
death and rebirth. I have eaten diverse kinds of food, I have sucked at
diverse breasts. I have seen diverse kinds of mothers, and diverse
fathers dissimilar to one another. Diverse kinds of happiness have been
mine and diverse kinds of misery, O sinless one. On diverse occasions
have I been separated from what was agreeable and united with what was
disagreeable. Having earned wealth with great toil I have had to put up
with its loss. Insults and excessive misery I have received from king and
relatives. Mental and physical pain, of great severity, have been mine.
Humiliations I have undergone, and death and immurement under
circumstances of great severity. Falls into Hell have been mine, and
great tortures in the domains of Yama. Decrepitude and diseases have
repeatedly assailed me, and calamities, as frequent, in copious measure.
In this world I have repeatedly undergone all those afflictions that flow
from a perception of all pairs of opposites. After all this, one day,
overwhelmed with sorrow, blank despair came upon me. I took refuge in the
Formless. Afflicted as I was with great distress, I gave up the world
with all its joys and sorrows.[8] Understanding then this path, I
exercised myself in it in this world. Afterwards, through tranquillity of
soul, I attained to this success that thou seest. I shall not have to
come to this world again (after my departure hence). Verily, till I
attain to absorption into eternal Brahman, till, in fact, the final
dissolution of the universe, I shall look on those happy ends that will
be mine, and on those beings that constitute this universe.[9] Having
acquired this excellent success, I shall, after departing from this
world, proceed, to w