Text 27] Instructions by Maharaja Prthu 845

In order to regulate the activities of the living entities, God has given us
codes, just as a king gives codes of law ina state, and whoever breaks the
law is punished. Similarly, the Lord has given the infallible knowledge of
the Vedas, which are not contaminated by the four defects of human
life—namely, the tendency to commit mistakes, to be illusioned, to cheat
and to have imperfect senses. If we do not take direction from the Vedas
but act whimsically according to our own choice, we are sure to be
punished by the laws of the Lord, who offers different types of bodies in
the 8,400,000 species of forms. Material existence, or the sense gratifi-
cation process, is conducted according to the type of body we are given
by prakrti, or material nature. As such, there must be divisions of pious
and impious activities (punya and papa). In Bhagavad-gita it is clearly
stated:

yesamh tv anta-gatam papam jandnam punya-karmanam
te dvandva-moha-nirmukta bhajante mam drdha-vratah

“One who has completely surpassed the resultant activities of the impious
path of life (this is possible only when one engages exclusively in pious
activities) can understand his eternal relationship with the Supreme Person-
ality of Godhead. Thus he engages in His transcendental loving service.”
(Bg. 7.28) This life of engaging always in the loving service of the Lord
is called adhoksaja-dhiyah, or a life of Krsna consciousness, which King
Prthu meant his citizens to follow.

The different varieties of life and of material existence do not come
about by chance and necessity; they are different arrangements made by
the Supreme Lord in terms of the pious and impious activities of the living
entities. By performing pious activities one can take birth in a good family
in a good nation, one can get a beautiful body or can become very well-
educated or very rich. We see, therefore, that in different places and in
different planets there are different standards of life, bodily features and
educational statuses, all awarded by the Supreme Personality of Godhead
according to pious or impious activities. Varieties of life, therefore, do not
develop by chance but by prearrangement. There is a plan, which is
already outlined in the Vedic knowledge. One has to take advantage of
this knowledge and mold his life in such a way that at the end, especially
in the human form of life, he may go back home, back to Godhead, by
practicing Krsna consciousness.

The theory of chance can best be explained in the Vedic literature by
the words ajiiata-sukrti, which refer to pious activities performed without
