Yamapatha (The Road of Yama), Dāna-Phala, and the Imperishable Fruition of Karma
तस्मिन्यो याति विश्वासं तं विद्यादात्मघातकम् । सर्वेषु प्राणिनः श्रेष्टास्तेषु वै बुद्धिजीविनः ॥ ३४ ॥
tasminyo yāti viśvāsaṃ taṃ vidyādātmaghātakam | sarveṣu prāṇinaḥ śreṣṭāsteṣu vai buddhijīvinaḥ || 34 ||
ထိုမသင့်တော်သောအရာ (သို့) လူပေါ်၌ ယုံကြည်မှုထားသူကို မိမိကိုယ်ကိုသတ်သူဟု သိမှတ်ကြလော့။ သတ္တဝါအားလုံးအနက် အကောင်းဆုံးမှာ လူသားဖြစ်၍၊ လူသားတို့အနက်လည်း မှန်ကန်သော ဉာဏ်ပညာဖြင့် အသက်ရှင်သူတို့သည် အကောင်းဆုံးပင် ဖြစ်ကြ၏။
Sanatkumara (teaching Narada)
Vrata: none
Primary Rasa: shanta
Secondary Rasa: vira
It warns that faith placed in an unworthy support becomes ātmaghāta—self-harm—because it derails discernment (viveka) and leads one away from dharma and liberation.
Bhakti is not blind credulity; it is steady faith anchored in a worthy object—Bhagavān and sādhus. The verse implies that misdirected trust obstructs true devotion by empowering harmful influences.
The takeaway is ethical discernment rather than a specific Vedāṅga ritual: one should use buddhi (reasoned judgment) to evaluate teachers, teachings, and practices before giving trust.