Shloka 59
Sarasvatī–Tārkṣya Saṃvāda: Agnihotra-vidhi, Dāna-phala, and Mokṣa-prasaṅga (सरस्वती–तार्क्ष्यसंवादः)
देही च देहं संत्यज्य मृग्यमाण: शुभाशुभै: । कथं संयुज्यते प्रेत्य इह वा द्विजसत्तम,'द्विजश्रेष्ठ देहधारी जीव अपने शरीरका त्याग करके जब परलोकमें चला जाता है, तब उसके शुभ और अशुभ कर्म उसको कैसे प्राप्त करते हैं और इहलोक और परलोकमें जीवका उन कर्मोंके फलसे किस प्रकार संयोग होता है?
dehī ca dehaṃ saṃtyajya mṛgyamāṇaḥ śubhāśubhaiḥ | kathaṃ saṃyujyate pretya iha vā dvijasattama ||
Vaiśampāyana said: “O best of twice-born ones, when the embodied self abandons the body and departs to the next world—being, as it were, pursued by its good and evil deeds—how do those auspicious and inauspicious actions reach it? And in this world and the next, in what manner does the living being become connected with the fruits of those deeds?”
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames a central karmic-ethical problem: even when the body is left behind at death, the embodied self remains accountable to its past actions. It asks by what mechanism merit and demerit ‘reach’ the jīva and how the jīva becomes linked to their results across this life and the next.
Vaiśampāyana, continuing the discourse, poses (or relays) a doctrinal question to a learned brāhmaṇa: when a person dies and goes to the other world, how do good and bad deeds follow and connect to the departed being, and how are their fruits experienced in both realms.