SECOND CHAPTER.

Again some say: 'It is proved that there are individual souls; they experience pleasure and pain; and (on dying) they lose their state of life. (1)

'But misery (and pleasure) is not caused by (the souls) themselves; how could it be caused by other (agents, as time, &c.)? Pleasure and misery, final beatitude and temporal (pleasure and pain) are not

caused by (the souls) themselves, nor by others; but the individual souls experience them; it is the lot assigned them by destiny.' This is what they (i.e. the fatalists) say. (2, 3)

Those who proclaim these opinions, are fools who fancy themselves learned; they have no knowledge, and do not understand that things depend partly on fate, and partly on human exertion . (4)

Thus (say) some heretics ; they are very bold men; if they act up to their principles, they will never be delivered from misery. (5)

As the swift deer who are destitute of protection, are frightened where there is no danger, and not frightened where there is danger; (6)

(As) they dread safe places, but do not dread traps; they are bewildered by ignorance and fear, and run hither and thither; (7)

If they did jump over the noose or pass under it, they would escape from the snare; but the stupid animal does not notice it; (8)

The unhappy animal, being of a weak intellect, runs into the dangerous (place), is caught in the snare, &c., and is killed there; (9)

So some unworthy Sramanas who hold wrong doctrines are afraid of what is free from danger, and are not afraid of real dangers. (to)

The fools dread the preaching of the Law, but

they do not dread works, being without discernment and knowledge. (11)

Shaking off greed , pride , deceit , and wrath , one becomes free from Karman. This is a subject (which an ignorant man, like) a brute animal, does not attend to. (12)

The unworthy heretics who do not acknowledge this, will incur death an endless number of times, like deer caught in a snare. (13)

All Brahmanas and Sramanas contend that they possess the knowledge (of the truth), but the creatures in the whole world do not know anything. (14)

As a Mlekkha repeats what an Arya has said, but does not understand the meaning, merely repeating his words, so the ignorant, though pretending to possess knowledge, do not know the truth, just as an uninstructed Mlekkha. (15, 16)

The speculations of the Agnostics cannot lead to knowledge; they cannot reach the truth by themselves, still less teach it to other men. (17)

As when a man in a wood who does not know it, follows a guide who also does not know it, both being unacquainted (with the place), come to great trouble; (18)

As when one blind man is the guide of another, the man walks a great distance, loses his way, or follows a wrong way; (19)

Thus some who search after salvation and pretend