Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (Volume 1).pdf/228

214 Therefore, O king, this highly censurable and wicked vice should be repressed. I have now, O king, told thee all. Tell me what more I shall say.

"Ashtaka said, 'When life is destroyed with age, vultures, peacocks, insects, and worms eat up the human body. Where doch man then reside? How doth he also come back to life? I have never heard of any hell called Bhauma on Earth /

"Yayati answered,-'After the dissolution of the body. man, according to his acts, re-entereth the womb of his mother and stayeth there in an indistinct form, and soon after assuming a distinct and visible shape re-appeareth in the world and walketh on its surface. This is that Earth-hell (Bhauma) where he falleth, for he beholdeth not the termination of his existence and acteth not towards his emancipation, Some dwell for sixty thousand years, some, for eighty-thousand years in heaven, and then they fall. And as they fall, they are attacked by certain Rakshasas beholding to the world, in the form of sous, grandsons, and other relatives, that withdraw their hearts from acting for their own emancipation.'

"Ashtaka asked. -For what sin are beings, when they fall from heaven, attacked by these fierce and sharp-toothed Rakshasas? Why are they not reduced to annihilation? How do they again enter the womb, furnished with senses ?

"Yayati answered. After falling from heaven, the being becometh a subtile substance living in water. This water becometh the semen whence is the seed of vitality. Thence entering the mother's womb in the womanly season, it developeth into the embryo and next into visible life like the fruit from the flower. Entering trees, plants, and other vegetable substances, water, air, earth, and space, that same watery seed of life assumeth the quadrupedal or bipedal form. This is the case with all creatures that you see !

"Ashtaka said--'O tell me, I ask thee because I have my doubts ! Doth a being that bath received a human form enter the womb in its own shape or in some other? How doth it also acquire its distinct and visible shape, eyes and ears and consciousness as well ? Questioned by me, O, explain it all! Thou art, O father, one acquainted with the acts and sayings of great beings!' Yayati answered-'According to the merits of one's acts, the being that in a subtile form co-inheres in the seed that is dropped into the womb is attacted by the atmospheric force for purposes of re-birth. It then developeth there in course of time; first it becomes the embryo, and is next provided with the visible physical organism. Coming out of the womb in due course of time, it becometh conscious of its existence as man, and with his ears becometh sensible of