SECTION XXXVII
"Brahman said, 'Ye best of beings, I shall now declare to you accurately
what (the quality of) Passion is. Ye highly blessed ones, do you
understand what those qualities are that appertain to Passion, Injuring
(others), beauty, toil, pleasure and pain, cold and heat, lordship (or
power), war, peace, arguments, dissatisfaction, endurance,[107] might,
valour, pride, wrath, exertion, quarrel (or collision), jealousy, desire,
malice, battle, the sense of meum or mineness, protection (of others),
slaughter, bonds, and affliction, buying and selling, lopping off,
cutting, piercing and cutting off the coat of mail that another has
worn,[108] fierceness, cruelty, villifying, pointing out the faults of
others, thoughts entirely devoted to worldly affairs, anxiety, animosity,
reviling of others, false speech, false or vain gifts, hesitancy and
doubt, boastfulness of speech, dispraise and praise, laudation, prowess,
defiance, attendance (as on the sick and the weak), obedience (to the
commands of preceptors and parents), service or ministrations, harbouring
of thirst or desire, cleverness or dexterity of conduct, policy
heedlessness, contumely, possessions, and diverse decorations that
prevail in the world among men, women, animals, inanimate things, houses,
grief, incredulousness, vows and regulations, actions with expectation
(of good result), diverse acts of public charity, the rites in respect of
Swaha salutations, rites of Swadha and Vashat, officiating at the
sacrifices of others, imparting of instruction, performance of
sacrifices, study, making of gifts, acceptance of gifts, rites of
expiation, auspicious acts, the wish to have this and that, affection
generated by the merits of the object for which or whom it is felt,
treachery, deception, disrespect and respect, theft, killing, desire of
concealment, vexation, wakefulness, ostentation, haughtiness, attachment,
devotion, contentment, exultation, gambling, indulgence in scandal, all
relations arising out of women, attachment to dancing, instrumental music
and songs--all these qualities, ye learned Brahmanas, have been said to
belong to Passion. Those men on Earth who meditate on the past, present,
and the future, who are devoted to the aggregate of three, viz.,
Religion, Wealth, and Pleasure, who acting from impulse of desire, exult
on attaining to affluence in respect of every desire, are said to be
enveloped by Passion. These men have downward courses. Repeatedly reborn
in this world, they give themselves up to pleasure. They covet what
belongs to this world as also all those fruit, that belong to the world
hereafter. They make gifts, accept gifts, offer oblations to the Pitris,
and pour libations on the sacrificial fire. The qualities of Passion have
(thus) been declared to you in their variety. The course of conduct also
to which it leads has been properly described to you. The man who always
understands these qualities, succeeds in always freeing himself from all
of them which appertain to Passion.'"
