Heaven.  There he lives like a god in a celestial mansion abounding with every comfort.  If, upon the exhaustion of his merit, he has to take birth in the order of humanity, he becomes born as a man that has not to fight with difficulties of any kind or to encounter any fear.  Indeed, he enjoys great happiness.  Possessed of felicity, without the obligation of undergoing distressing labour for his subsistence, he lives freed from every kind of anxiety.  Even this, O goddess, is the path of the righteous.  In it there are no impediments or afflictions.’

“Uma said, ’In the world some men are seen well-versed in inferences and the premises leading to them.  Indeed, they are possessed of science and knowledge, have large progeny, and are endued with learning and wisdom.  Others, O god, are destitute of wisdom, science, and knowledge, and are characterised by folly.  By what particular acts does a person become possessed of wisdom?  By what acts, again, does one become possessed of little wisdom and distorted vision?  Do thou dispel this doubt of mine, O thou that art the foremost of all beings conversant with duties.  Others there are, O god, that are blind from the moment of their birth.  Others there are that are diseased and afflicted and impotent.  Do thou, O god, tell me the reason of this.’

“Maheswara said, ’Those men that always enquire, about what is for their benefit and what is to their detriment, Brahmanas learned in the Vedas, crowned with success, and conversant with all duties, that avoid all kinds of evil deeds and achieve only such deeds as are good, succeed in ascending to Heaven after departing from this world and enjoy great happiness as long as they live here.  Indeed, upon the exhaustion of their merit when they take birth in the order of humanity, they become born as men possessed of great intelligence.  Every kind of felicity and auspiciousness becomes theirs in consequence of that intelligence with which they are born.  Those men of foolish understandings who cast wicked eyes upon the wedded spouses of other men, become cursed with congenital blindness in consequence of that sinfulness of theirs.  Those men who, impelled by desire in their hearts, cast their eyes on naked women, those men of wicked deeds take birth in this world to pass their whole lives in one continuous disease.  Those men of foolish and wicked deeds who indulge in sexual congress with women of orders different from their own,—­those men of little wisdom,—­have to take birth in their next lives as persons destitute of virility.  Those men who cause animals to be slain, and those who violate the beds of their preceptors, and those who indulge promiscuously in sexual congress, have to take birth in their next lives as persons destitute of the virile power.’

“Uma said, ’What acts, O foremost of the deities, are faulty, and what acts are faultless?  What, indeed, are those acts by doing which a man succeeds in attaining to what is for your highest good?’