Verse 1

¹Then, king, the god-sages showed them the dead son of the king and spoke this way to the kinsmen who were grieving over him: ²Living self, look — good come to you — at your mother and your father. Your friends and your kinsmen are burnt through with the grief they carry for you. ³Enter your own body again and live out what is left of your years among your friends. Enjoy the goods your father gives you, and take the king's seat. ⁴In which birth were these my fathers and my mothers? I am driven round by my works among the wombs of gods and beasts and men. ⁵Kinsmen and relatives, enemies, bystanders, friends, the indifferent and the hostile: every one of them becomes every one of these to the others by turns.

⁶As goods for sale, gold and the rest, pass round from one man to another, so does the living one pass round among the wombs that make it.