“The Brahmanas said, ’Let no anxiety, O king, in respect of our maintenance, find a place in thy heart!  Ourselves providing our own food, we shall follow thee, and by meditation and saying our prayers we shall compass thy welfare while by pleasant converse we shall entertain thee and be cheered ourselves.’

“Yudhishthira said, ’Without doubt, it must be as ye say, for I am ever pleased with the company of the regenerate ones!  But my fallen condition maketh me behold in myself an object of reproach!  How shall I behold you all, that do not deserve to bear trouble, out of love for me painfully subsisting upon food procured by your own toil?  Oh, fie upon the wicked sons of Dhritarashtra!’”

Vaisampayana continued, “Saying this, the weeping king sat himself down upon the ground.  Then a learned Brahmana, Saunaka by name versed in self-knowledge and skilled in the Sankhya system of yoga, addressed the king, saying, ’Causes of grief by thousands, and causes of fear by hundreds, day after day, overwhelm the ignorant but not the wise.  Surely, sensible men like thee never suffer themselves to be deluded by acts that are opposed to true knowledge, fraught with every kind of evil, and destructive of salvation.  O king, in thee dwelleth that understanding furnished with the eight attributes which is said to be capable of providing against all evils and which resulteth from a study of the Sruti (Vedas) and scriptures!  And men like unto thee are never stupefied, on the accession of poverty or an affliction overtaking their friends, through bodily or mental uneasiness!  Listen, I shall tell the slokas which were chanted of old by the illustrious Janaka touching the subject of controlling the self!  This world is afflicted with both bodily and mental suffering.  Listen now to the means of allaying it as I indicate them both briefly and in detail.  Disease, contact with painful things, toil and want of objects desired.—­these are the four causes that induce bodily suffering.  And as regards disease, it may be allayed by the application of medicine, while mental ailments are cured by seeking to forget them by yoga-meditation.  For this reason, sensible physicians first seek to allay the mental sufferings of their patients by agreeable converse and the offer of desirable objects.  And as a hot iron bar thrust into a jar maketh the water therein hot, even so doth mental grief bring on bodily agony.  And as water quencheth fire, so doth true knowledge allay mental disquietude.  And the mind attaining ease, the body findeth ease also.  It seemeth that affection is the root of all mental sorrow.  It is affection that maketh every creature miserable and bringeth on every kind of woe.  Verily affection is the root of all misery and of all fear, of joy and grief of every kind of pain.  From affection spring all purposes, and it is from affection that spring the love of worldly goods!  Both of these (latter) are sources of evil, though the first (our