Chapter 30: Lord Kapila Describes the Adverse Consequences of Fruitive Activities

(1) Kapila said: 'Just like a mass of clouds has no knowledge of the powerful wind, a person has no knowledge of this time factor, even though he is being conditioned by it. (2) Whatever the goods are that one with difficulty acquired for one's happiness are destroyed by the Supreme Lord [in the form of Time] and because of this the person laments. (3) In his ignorance he foolishly thinks that the temporality of having a home, land and wealth for the sake of his body, would be something permanent. (4) The living being finding its satisfaction in this worldly existence, will irrespective the birth that was acquired, be in consonance with it. (5) Even physically living in hell a person, who in truth is deluded by the illusory material potency of God, does not want to give up his hellish pleasures. (6) With his body, wife, children, home, animals, wealth and friendships deeply rooted in his heart, he thinks of himself as being a great success. (7) Burning with anxiety about maintaining all the members of his dear family, he is constantly of sin and with a bad mind acting like a fool. (8) With his heart and senses charmed by a woman he sees in private and by the display of the sweet words of his children, he is of the falsehood of the outer illusion [of non-permanent matters being eternal]. (9) Involved in the household duties of his family life that gives rise to all kinds of trouble, he is busy countering these miseries attentively and thinks that that will make him happy as a householder. (10) By means of the wealth that here and there with violence [and victims] was secured, he maintains his family, but he goes down himself when he for his own maintenance may eat what was left over from the meal. (11) When he time and again ruled by greed [enviously] desires the wealth that is enjoyed by others, he himself gets into trouble in exercising his profession and is thus ruined. (12) No longer capable of maintaining his family the unfortunate wretch bereft of wealth and beauty then sighs with a bewildered intelligence full of grief over everything he tried in vain.

(13) No longer capable of maintaining his wife and so on, he finds himself not respected as before, just as an old ox is not respected the same way by his farmer. (14) Even though he now is maintained by those he once maintained, he doesn't develop any aversion. He, getting deformed of old age, rather stays at home to await his death. (15) There he remains and eats like a pet dog that what indifferently is placed before him and falls sick with indigestion, eating little and doing little. (16) Because of the inner pressure his eyes bulge out and with his windpipe congested with mucus he coughs and has difficulty breathing, only saying 'ugha ugha'. (17) Lying down surrounded by his lamenting friends and relatives he, unconscious in the grip of the noose of time, cannot speak although it's the time for it. (18) Thus, having engrossed in maintaining his family, he has no control over his mind and senses and dies in great pain, while his relatives cry as he passes away. (19) Witnessing the arrival of the servants of death with their terrible eyes full of wrath he because of the fear in his heart passes stool and urine. (20) They like the king's soldiers immobilize his body by binding him in ropes for his punishment and then drag him like a criminal forcefully by the neck over a long distance. (21) In his heart broken by their threatening presence he, overtaken, trembles on the road and is bitten by dogs in the distress of remembering his sins. (22) Afflicted by hunger, thirst and the radiation of scorching forest fires and winds on hot and sandy roads, he feels how he painfully is beaten on his back with a whip, while he unable to move finds no refuge or water. (23) Falling now and then he gets tired and loses consciousness, and then reawakens on the road of his misery where he quickly is led before the eternal ruler of death [Yamarâja]. (24) He sees his entire life pass by in a few moments [he passes 'ninety-nine thousand yojanas'] and then receives the punishment he deserves. (25) Then with his limbs covered by firewood he is cremated or sometimes sees that he eats his own flesh or that it is done by other creatures. (26) Vividly he then witnesses how dogs pull out his entrails at his last resting place where serpents, scorpions, gnats and so on pester him to his abhorrence. (27) He sees how one by one his limbs come off being seized by big and small animals who tear him apart, throw him from heights or drag him under water or into caves. (28)  Because of loose association [not being of a steady sexual relationship] one must, whether one is a man or a woman, undergo the requital in hellish states of anger, self-destruction and bewilderment [tâmisra, andha-tâmisra and raurava and such, see 5.26].

(29) Oh mother, because one can observe [the downside of] these hellish pains here, one speaks of [finding] heaven as well as hell in this world. (30) He who thus [in greed, attachment and infidelity] maintained his family or lived for his stomach only, will upon leaving this world after he died have to face the consequences for himself as also for his family. (31) After quitting this vehicle of time he will enter the darkness all alone and pay the price for the harm that he in the care of his own interest did to others in envy of their fortune. (32) By divine ordinance the man sustaining a family has to undergo the hellish condition that resulted from his foul play, just like someone who lost his wealth. (33) Someone who in his eagerness to care for his family is simply godless in his actions, thus heads for the darkest region of self-destruction [andha-tâmisra]. (34) After he beginning from the lowest position [of an animal existence] prior to a human birth in due order has underwent all the requital and such, he being purified may again return to the human world on this planet.'