The rise of the good, on the other hand, like that of the sun and the moon, is ever conducive to universal joy. The highest religious merit known to the vedas is to do no harm; and there is no sin as heinous as speaking ill of others.

A reviler of Shankara or his guru takes the form of a frog (after his death) and retains that form throughout a thousand lives. A reviler of the Brahmans, after suffering in many hells, is reborn in the world in the form of a crow.

Those who revile the gods and the Vedas in their presumption are cast into the lowest hell, while those who delight in vilifying the good are reborn as owls, who love the night of ignorance and for whom the sun of wisdom is set.

Those dull-witted simpletons who slander all are reborn as bats. Now hear, my friend, the diseases of the mind, from which all people suffer pain.

Ignorance is the root of all ailments from which again arise many other torments. Lust is wind and insatiable greed is phlegm; anger is bile, that constantly inflames the breast.

Should these three brothers (wind, bile and phlegm) form an alliance, there results a painful state of miserable paralysis. The cravings for all sorts of sensual pleasures, so difficult to realize, are the various painful distempers, which are too numerous to name.

There are the ringworm of attachment, the itch of envy, the swollen goitre of joy and sorrow, the consumption of jealousy at the sight of another’s prosperity, the leprosy of wickedness and perversity of soul.