SRI AUROBINDO
Translations
from Sanskrit and Other Languages
Kalidasa
Bhartrihari. The Century of Life
Whom shall men worship? The high Gods? But they
Suffer fate’s masteries, enjoy and rue.
Whom shall men worship? Fate’s stern godhead? Nay,
Fate is no godhead. Many fruits or few
Their actions bring to men,– that settled price
She but deals out, a steward dumb, precise.
Let action be man’s God, o’er whom even Fate
Can rule not, nor his puissance abrogate.
1 There is a distinction, not always strictly observed, between Fate and Karma. Karma is the principle of Action in the universe with its stream of cause and infallible effect, and for man the sum of his past actions whose results reveal themselves not at once, but in the dispensation of Time, partly in this life, mostly in lives to come. Fate seems a more mysterious power imposing itself on men, despite all their will and endeavour, from outside them and above – daivam, a power from the Gods.