Vaishampayana said After this, king, Yudhishthira gifted with great energy, and the foremost of eloquent men, addressed his grandfather lying on his bed of arrows, in the following words.

Yudhishthira said O You of great intelligence, the Rishi and Brahmanas and the celestials led by the authority of the Vedas, all speak highly of the religion of mercy.

But, o king, what I ask you is this how does a man who has perpetrated acts of injury to others in word, thought and deed, succeed in purifying himself from misery.

Bhishma said Brahmavadins have said that there are four kinds of mercy or abstention from injury. If even one of those four kinds be not observed. The religion of mercy, it is said, is not observed.

As all quadruped animals are incapable of standing on three legs so the religion of mercy cannot stand if any of those four divisions or parts be wanting.

As the footprints of all other animals are sunk in those of the elephant, so all other religions are said to be contained in that of mercy. A person becomes guilty of injury through acts, words, and thoughts.

Discarding it mentally in the beginning, one should next discard it in word and thought. He who according to this rule, abstains from eating meat is said to be purified in a three fold way.

It is heard that Brahmavadins point out three causes (for the sin of eating meat). That sin may attach to the mind, to words, and to deeds.

It is therefore, that wise men who are gifted with penances refrain from eating meat. Listen to me, O king, as tell you what the faults are which attach to the eating of meat.

The meat of other animals is like the flesh of one's son. That foolish person, stupefied by folly, who eats meat is considered as the vilest of human beings.

The union of father and mother produces children, Similarly the cruelty that a helpless and sinful wretch commits, produces its progeny of repeated rebirths fraught with great misery.

As the tongue is the cause of sensation of taste, so, the scriptures declare, attachment proceeds from taste.

Well-dressed, cooked with salt or without salt, meat, in whatever form one may take it, by and by attracts the mind and enslaves it.

How will those foolish men who live upon meat succeed in listening to the sweet music of celestial drums and cymbals and lyres and harps?

They who eat meat highly speak of it, allowing themselves to be stupefied by its taste which they declare be something inconceivable, undesirable, and unimaginable.

Such pradise even of meat is sinful. Formerly, many pious men, by giving the flesh of their own bodies, protected the flesh of other creatures and as a result of such deeds of merit, have proceeded to the celestial region.

In this way, O king, the religion of mercy is surrounded by four considerations. I have thus declared to you that religion which contains all other religions within it. to