Text 30] Instructions by Maharaja Prthu 849

headed by his father, who was the grandson of death personified. General-
ly, a daughter inherits the qualities of her father, and a son gets the
qualities of his mother. Thus Mrtyu’s daughter, Sunitha, got all the qualities
of her father, and Vena inherited the qualities of his mother. A person
who is always subjected to the rules and regulations of repeated birth and
death cannot accommodate anything beyond materialistic ideas. Since King
Vena was such a man, he did not believe in the existence of God. Modern
civilization agrees with the principles of King Vena, but factually if we
scrutinizingly study all the conditions of religion, economic development,
sense gratification and liberation, we must accept the principles of the
authority of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. According to Vedic
literature, religion consists only of the codes of law given by God.

If one does not accept the authority of the Supreme Godhead in matters
of religion and morality, one must explain why two persons of the same
moral standard achieve different results. It is generally found that even if
two men have the same moral standards of ethics, honesty and morality,
their positions are still not the same. Similarly, in economic development it
is seen that if two men work very hard day and night, still the results are
not the same. @ne person may enjoy great opulence without even working,
whereas another person, although working very hard, does not even get
two sufficient meals a day. Similarly, in the matter of sense gratification,
sometimes one who has sufficient food is still not happy in his family
affairs or sometimes is not even married, whereas another person, even
though not economically well off, has the greatest opportunity for sense
gratification. Even an animal like a hog or a dog may have greater oppor-
tunities for sense gratification than a human being. Aside from liberation,
even if we consider only the preliminary necessities of life—dharma, artha
and kama (religion, economic development and sense gratification)—we
will see that they are not the same for everyone. Therefore it must be
accepted that there is someone who determines the different standards. In
conclusion, not only for liberation must one depend on the Lord, but
even for ordinary necessities in this material world. Prthu Maharaja there-
fore indicated that in spite of having rich parents, children are sometimes
not happy. Similarly, in spite of valuable medicine administered by a com-
petent physician, sometimes a patient dies; or in spite of having a big safe
boat, sometimes a man drowns. We may thus struggle to counteract
impediments offered by material nature, but our attempts cannot be
successful unless we are favored by the Supreme Personality of God-

head.
