Verse 1

¹Bhagavan said: Those who leave aside these paths of mine, which are made of devotion, of knowledge and of action, and with their restless breath go after petty desires — they go round in the round of birth. ²Standing fast in one's own charge is what is proclaimed a merit. The opposite of it would be a fault. This is what has been settled about the two. ³Clean and unclean are laid down even among things that are alike. Merit and fault, the good and the ill, are there so that a thing may be weighed. ⁴For the sake of dharma, for the sake of dealings, and for the sake of getting through life, faultless one, this rule of conduct has been shown by me to those who carry the yoke of dharma.