Shloka 6
Dehānta (Cyavana) and Upapatti: Kāśyapa’s Questions and the Siddha’s Account of Death, Pain, and Karmic Re-embodiment
सिद्ध उवाच आयु:कीर्तिकराणीह यानि कृत्यानि सेवते । शरीरग्रहणे यस्मिंस्तेषु क्षीणेषु सर्वश:
siddha uvāca āyuḥ-kīrti-karāṇīha yāni kṛtyāni sevate | śarīra-grahaṇe yasmiṁs teṣu kṣīṇeṣu sarvaśaḥ ||
成就者は言った。「カーシュヤパよ、この世において人が寿命と名声を増すために行う諸々の行為は、身を得る因となる。ひとたび身を受ければ、それらの業が果を結んでことごとく尽きるとき、定められた寿命もまた減り始める。その境地において人は、真の益に背く害ある行いへと傾き、滅びの時が迫るにつれて、その理解は倒錯する。」
सिद्ध उवाच
Educational Q&A
Meritorious actions can lead to embodied existence and its enjoyments (longevity, reputation), but once their results are exhausted, decline sets in; near the end, one may fall into harmful conduct and confused judgment—so one should cultivate steady discernment and dharmic restraint rather than rely on temporary karmic fruits.
A Siddha addresses a listener (contextually a sage such as Kāśyapa in the surrounding discourse) and explains the karmic mechanism behind embodiment and decline: deeds ripen into a body and its allotted span, and when those deeds are spent, the being’s condition deteriorates and the mind tends toward error as death approaches.