is his place?  Whence can he have happiness?  An ungrateful person does not deserve to be trusted.  One that is ungrateful can never escape.  No person should injure a friend.  He that injures a friend sinks into terrible and everlasting hell.  Every one should be grateful and every one should seek to benefit his friends.  Everything may be obtained from a friend.  Honours may be obtained from friends.[499] In consequence of friends one may enjoy various objects of enjoyment.  Through the exertions of friends, one may escape from various kinds of danger and distress.  He that is wise would honour his friend with his best attentions.  An ungrateful, shameless, and sinful wight should be shunned by those that are wise.  One that injures his friends is a wretch of his race.  Such a sinful wight is the vilest of men.  I have thus told thee, O foremost of all virtuous men, what the characteristics are of that sinful wretch who is stained by ingratitude and who injures his friend.  What else dost thou wish to hear?’

“Vaisampayana continued, ’Hearing these words spoken by the high-souled Bhishma, Yudhishthira, O Janamejaya, became highly gratified.’

 Section CLXXIV

(Mokshadharma Parva)

“Yudhishthira said, ’thou hast, O grandsire, discoursed upon the auspicious duties (of person in distress) connected with the duties of kings.  It behoveth thee now, O king, to tell me those foremost of duties which belong to those who lead the (four) modes of life.’

“Bhishma said, ’Religion hath many doors.  The observance of (the duties prescribed by) religion can never be futile.  Duties have been laid down with respect to every mode of life. (The fruits of those duties are invisible, being attainable in the next world.) The fruits, however, of Penance directed towards the soul are obtainable in this world.[500] Whatever be the object to which one devotes oneself, that object, O Bharata, and nothing else, appears to one as the highest of acquisitions fraught with the greatest of blessings.  When one reflects properly (one’s heart being purified by such reflection), one comes to know that the things of this world are as valueless as straw.  Without doubt, one is then freed from attachment in respect of those things.  When the world, O Yudhishthira, which is full of defects, is so constituted, every man of intelligence should strive for the attainment of the emancipation of his soul.’

“Yudhishthira said, ’Tell me, O grandsire, by what frame of soul should one kill one’s grief when one loses one’s wealth, or when one’s wife, or son, or sire, dies.’