31 - On bestowing gifts

 1. Men tainted by sins go to Yama's abode. A gift made in my name accords endless benefits. 

2. A person who gifts plots of land stays in heaven for as many years as the number of steps the land measures. Those who make gifts of sandals go scated on horse-back. 

3. By making a gift of umbrella one will traverse after death, without difficulty, the paths where other men are excessively oppressed by the heat of the sun. 

4-5. If food is given in gift with the dead man in view he will be nourished by the same. Men who make gifts of lamps can traverse those regions infested by terrible darkness, without the aim or regular form, which shall for him become illuminated brightly. 

6. The gift of lamp is conducive to the pleasure of those who die in the month of Aśhvina, Kārttika or Magha or on the fourteenth day of the lunar fortnight. 

7. Lamps shall be gifted daily for a year after the death for the benefit of the dead in the troublesome path. 

8. The pure soul who is engaged in the gift of lamps shall brighten his path and his family. He shall be honoured among the luminaries of the sky. 

9-10. He who makes a gift of lamps either for the dead or for himself facing east or north or places them in temples or in the houses of brahmins will be able to traverse the Great Path without any distress. 

11. He who makes gifts of seats, vessels or foodstuffs to brahmins goes along the path happily and enjoys everything. 

12-15. By making a gift of water-jar the thirsty shall drink water. Vessels, clothes, flowers, rings shall be gifted on the eleventh day for the dead to attain the highest goal. Thus those who wish the dead well shall make gifts of the thirteen articles according to their ability. The dead shall be pleased thereby. Foodstuffs, gingelly seeds, water-jars thirteen in number, a ring, pair of clothes should be gifted in favour of the dead to help him attain the highest goal. 

16. He who makes gifts of a horse, a boat or an elephant to brahmins will become happy. 

17. He who makes a gift of buffalo sojourns in many worlds. A she-buffalo, the mother of the vehicle of Yama, accords benefit. 

18. A gift of betel leaves together with flowers increases the delight of those who are in Yama's abode. Being delighted with that they do not harass him. 

19-20. The man who gives according to his ability gists of cows, plots of lands, gingelly seeds, gold and an earthen jar full of water, with the dead in view attains the fruit of the gift of a thousand water-jars. 

21. If a person makes a gift of clothes, the awe-inspiring terrible emissaries of Yama black and tawny in colour do not threaten him. 

22. By making gifts of potfuls of foodstuffs one shall be happy in those paths which one should otherwise have to traverse exhausted utterly and oppressed by thirst. 

23. A bed with smooth cotton within and covered by a velvet cloth should be given to gods and brahmins. By that the dead man will be freed from ghosthood and rejoice with deities. 

24. Thus, 0 Tärkşhya, I have explained to you the gifts which should be offered when performing obsequies. I shall now tell you how death enters the body. 

25-26. Death'is inevitable to all living beings in this mortal world. 

O lord of birds, when the living beings die, the vital air shrinking to its subtle size comes out of the throat. 

27. It may escape through any of the nine apertures or through the pores of hair or through the palate. The subtle soul escapes through Apåna¹ in the case of sinners.

1. apana-One of the five life-winds in the body which goes down words and out at the anus. The other four are pråņa, samana, vyåna and udåna.  

28. When the vital air escapes, the corpse falls down. When struck down by Death it falls like a tree bereft of its support. 

29. The earthly matter becomes merged in the principle of fire. The gaseous matter becomes assimilated in the principle of wind. The ethereal matter gets dissolved in the principle of ether and the all-pervasive soul gets merged in Shankara. 

30. The five vices-passion, etc. and the five sense organs, O bird, are the villains stationed in the body. 

31. Lust, anger and egotism are led by the mind which is the annihilating agent in collusion with merit and demerit. 

32. The form of the universe is evolved out of one's own activities. The next body it transmigrates to is also the result of its merits and demerits. 

33. Just as a householder enters a new furnished house after the former has been burnt and destroyed, so also the soul enters a new body endowed with all objects and the five sense-organs. 

34-36. Many are the excretions and discharges from the body including faeces, urine, bile, phlegm, marrow, flesh, fat, and semen. These together with the bones and sinews are burnt along with the body. 

O Tårkshya, thus the position of these in all embodied beings has been clarified. 

37-39. Now, I shall tell you how the body looks like. Human body is a single column of sinews embellished with two pegs and endowed with the sense-organs in nine opertures. It is constantly attacked by the objects, agitated by lust and anger, tossed by love and hatred, victimised by an unquenchable thirst, entrapped in the network of covetousness, enshrouded in the cloth of greed, bound by illusion but presided over by a conscious being. It is, as it were, like a city with six vestibules with the Purusa in charge thereof. 

40. All the bodies are invested with these attributes and features. All the deities and the fourteen worlds¹ are present therein. 

1. Fourteen worlds-Roughly speaking there are three lokas: heaven, earth and nether region, but according to fuller classification the lokas are fourteen: seven higher regions rising from the earth one above the other, viz.,:,:, Fa:, 98:, 377, 09:, HUF, and seven lower regions descending from the earth one below the other, viz., 4a, faciat, HETET, THIGIA, 

STATIST, ARTC, and Paathaala. 

41. Those who do not understand themselves are no better than brutes. The four kinds of living beings have their bodies of the same nature and same content. 

42. Eight million four hundred thousand varieties of creatures were created by me formerly. 

43. They are svedajas, (insects), Udbhijas, (plants), andajas (birds) and jarayujas, born from the womb, O sinless one, I have thus explained what you asked me.