SECTION XXXVI
"Brahma said, 'That which is unmanifest, which is indistinct,
all-pervading, everlasting, immutable, should be known to become the city
(or mansion) of nine portals, possessed of three qualities, and
consisting of five ingredients. Encompassed by eleven including Mind
which distinguishes (objects), and having Understanding for the ruler,
this is an aggregate of eleven.[104] The three ducts that are in it
support it constantly. These are the three Nadis. They run continually,
and have the three qualities for their essence: Darkness, Passion, and
Goodness. These are called the (three) qualities. These are coupled with
one another. They exist, depending on one another. They take refuge in
one another, and follow one another. They are also joined with one
another. The five (principal) elements are characterised by (these) three
qualities. Goodness is the match of Darkness. Of Goodness the match is
Passion. Goodness is also the match of Passion, and of Goodness the match
is Darkness. There where Darkness is restrained, Passion is seen to flow.
There where Passion is restrained, Goodness is seen to flow. Darkness
should be known to have the night (or obscurity) for its essence. It has
three characteristics, and is (otherwise) called Delusion. It has
unrighteousness (or sin) also for its indication, and it is always
present in all sinful acts. This is the nature of Darkness and it appears
also as confined with others. Passion is said to have activity for its
essence. It is the cause of successive acts. When it prevails, its
indication, among all beings, is production. Splendour, lightness, and
faith,--these are the form, that is light, of Goodness among all
creatures, as regarded by all good men. The true nature of their
characteristics will now be declared by me, with reasons. These shall be
stated in aggregation and separation. Do ye understand them. Complete
delusion, ignorance; illiberality, indecision in respect of action,
sleep, haughtiness, fear, cupidity, grief, censure of good acts, loss of
memory,--unripeness of judgment, absence of faith, violation of all rules
of conduct, want of discrimination, blindness, vileness of behaviour,
boastful assertions of performance when there has been no performance,
presumption of knowledge in ignorance, unfriendliness (or hostility),
evilness of disposition, absence of faith, stupid reasoning, crookedness,
incapacity for association, sinful action, senselessness, stolidity,
lassitude, absence of self-control, degradation,--all these qualities are
known as belonging to Darkness. Whatever other states of mind, connected
with delusion, exist in the world, all appertain to Darkness. Frequent
ill-speaking of other people, censuring the deities and the Brahmanas,
illiberality, vanity, delusion, wrath, unforgiveness, hostility towards
all creatures, are regarded as the characteristics of Darkness. Whatever
undertakings exist that are unmeritorious (in consequence of their being
vain or useless), what gifts there are that are unmeritorious (in
consequence of the unworthiness of the donees, the unreasonableness of
the time, the impropriety of the object, etc.), vain eating,--these also
appertain to Darkness. Indulgence in calumny, unforgiveness, animosity,
vanity, and absence of faith are also said to be characteristics of
Darkness. Whatever men there are in this world who are characterised by
these and other faults of a similar kind, and who break through the
restraints (provided by the scriptures), are all regarded as belonging to
the quality of Darkness. I shall now declare the wombs where these men,
who are always of sinful deeds, have to take their birth. Ordained to go
to hell, they sink in the order of being. Indeed, they sink into the hell
of (birth in) the brute creation. They become immobile entities, or
animals, or beasts of burden; or carnivorous creatures, or snakes, or
worms, insects, and birds; or creatures, of the oviparous order, or
quadrupeds of diverse species; or lunatics, or deaf or dumb human beings,
or men that are afflicted by dreadful maladies and regarded as unclean.
These men of evil conduct, always exhibiting the indications of their
acts, sink in Darkness. Their course (of migrations) is always downwards.
Appertaining to the quality of Darkness, they sink in Darkness. I shall,
after this, declare what the means are of their improvement and ascent;
indeed, by what means they succeed in attaining to the regions that exist
for men of pious deeds. Those men who take birth in orders other than
humanity, by growing up in view of the religious ceremonies of Brahmanas
devoted to the duties of their own order and desirous of doing good to
all creatures, succeed, through the aid of such purificatory rites, in
ascending upwards. Indeed, struggling (to improve themselves), they at
last attain to the same regions with these pious Brahmanas. Verily, they
go to Heaven. Even this is the Vedic audition.[105] Born in orders other
than humanity and growing old in their respective acts, even thus they
become human beings that are, of course, ordained to return. Coming to
sinful births and becoming Chandalas or human beings that are deaf or
that lisp indistinctly, they attain to higher and higher castes, one
after another in proper turn, transcending the Sudra order, and other
(consequences of) qualities that appertain to Darkness and that abide in
it in course of migrations in this world.[106] Attachment to objects of
desire is regarded as great delusion. Here Rishis and Munis and deities
become deluded, desirous of pleasure. Darkness, delusion, the great
delusion, the great obscurity called wrath, and death, that blinding
obscurity, (these are the five great afflictions). As regards wrath, that
is the great obscurity (and not aversion or hatred as is sometimes
included in the list). With respect then to its colour (nature), its
characteristics, and its source, I have, ye learned Brahmanas, declared
to you, accurately and in due order, everything about (the quality of)
Darkness. Who is there that truly understands it? Who is there that truly
sees it? That, indeed, is the characteristic of Darkness, viz., the
beholding of reality in what is not real. The qualities of Darkness have
been declared to you in various ways. Duly has Darkness, in its higher
and lower forms, been described to you. That man who always bears in mind
the qualities mentioned here, will surely succeed in becoming freed from
all characteristics that appertain to Darkness.'"
