In that plight he continued to dwell, deprived of his senses, in that
wilderness, never losing at any time the hope of prolonging his life."
6
"Dhritarashtra said, Alas, great was the distress of that person and very
painful his mode of life! Tell me, O first of speakers, whence was his
attachment to life and whence his happiness? Where is that region, so
unfavourable to the practice of virtue, in which that person resides? Oh,
tell me how will that man be freed from all those great terrors? Tell me
all this! We shall then exert ourselves properly for him. My compassion
has been greatly moved by the difficulties that lie in the way of his
rescue!
"Vidura said, They that are conversant, O monarch, with the religion of
moksha cite this as a simile. Understanding this properly, a person may
attain to bliss in the regions hereafter. That which is described as the
wilderness is the great world. The inaccessible forest within it is the
limited sphere of ones own life. Those that have been mentioned as beasts
of prey are the diseases (to which we are subject). That woman of
gigantic proportions residing in the forest is identified by the wise
with Decrepitude which destroys complexion and beauty. That which has
been spoken of as the pit is the body or physical frame of embodied
creatures. The huge snake dwelling in the bottom of that pit is time, the
destroyer of all embodied creatures. It is, indeed, the universal
destroyer. The cluster of creepers growing in that pit and attached to
whose spreading stems the man hangeth down is the desire for life which
is cherished by every creature.
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