with it, he does not grieve. Such is that transcendent condition: those other states are but hells in comparison.

All these hells have been described to you as they really are: everything in this world is called a hell in comparison to that supreme condition.

yudhi·shthira said:

199.1

Earlier on you mentioned a dispute between Time, Death, Yama, Ikshvaku and a brahmin. Please tell me about that.*

bhishma said:

On this subject people relate an ancient tradition: the episode involving Ikshvaku,* scion of the Sun, and a brahmin. It also involved Time and Death as well—listen to my account of what happened and the course of their dialogue on that occasion.

199.5

There was once a particular brahmin of immense wisdom. He was a descendent of Kushika* and the son of Pippalada, a famed practitioner of quiet recitation who was righteous in conduct and a master of the six Vedic disciplines. Living in a shelter at the foot of the Himalayas, he was deeply versed in the Vedas—indeed his grasp of the six Vedic disciplines was clear to all.*

He lived a life of self-control, practicing a Vedic form of asceticism and quietly reciting the Veda. A thousand years passed while he was engaged in this religious observance, after which the goddess Savitri appeared before his eyes. She exclaimed “I am delighted!” but he continued his practice of quiet recitation in silence and did not say anything to her.