'"
SECTION CCLXXIX
"Yudhishthira said, 'All men speak of ourselves as highly fortunate. In
truth, however, there is no person more wretched than ourselves. Though
honoured by all the world, O best of the Kurus, and though we have been
born among men, O grandsire, having been begotten by the very gods, yet
when so much sorrow has been our lot, it seems, O reverend chief, that
birth alone in an embodied form is the cause of all sorrow. Alas, when
shall we adopt a life of Renunciation that is destructive of
sorrow?[1342] Sages of rigid vows freed from the seven and ten (i.e., the
five breaths, mind, understanding, and the ten organs of knowledge and
action), from the five faults of Yoga (viz., desire, wrath, covetousness,
fear, and sleep) that constitute the chief causes (for binding man to
repeated rounds of earthly life), and from the other eight, viz., the
five objects of the senses and the three attributes (of Sattwa, Rajas,
and Tamas), have never to incur rebirth. When, O scorcher of foes, shall
we succeed in abandoning sovereignty for adopting a life of renunciation?'
"Bhishma said, 'Everything, O great monarch, hath an end. Everything hath
bounds assigned to it. Even rebirth, it is well-known, hath an end. In
this world there is nothing that is, immutable. Thou thinkest, O king,
that this (viz., the affluence with which thou art invested is a fault).
That it is not so is not true, in regard to our present topic of
disquisition. Ye, however, are conversant with virtue, and have
readiness.
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