13. yarnasisasinah santo mucyante sarvakilbisaih
bhunjate tea tv agham papa ye pacanty citmakaranat at
(13) The good people who eat what is left from the sacrifice are released from all sins but those wicked people who prepare food for their own sake—verily they eat sin. Cp. Manu, III, 76, 118.[1]
14. annad bhavanti bhutani parjanyad annasambhavah
yajnad bhavati parjanyo yajnah karanasarnudbhavah
(14) From food creatures come into being; from rain is the birth of food; from sacrifice rain comes into being and sacrifice is born of work.
Cp.Manu, III, 76.
15. karma brahmodbhavah viddhi brava ' ksarasamudbhava
tasmãt sarvagatam brava nityam yakjne pratisthitam
(15) Know the origin of karma (of the nature of sacrifices) to be in Brahma (the Veda) and the Brahma springs from the Imperishable Therefore the Brahma, which comprehends all, ever centres round the sacrifice. Action is rooted in the Imperishable. But for the action of the Supreme, the world will fall into ruin. The world is a great sacrifice. We read in the Rg Veda (X, 9o) that the One Purusa was offered as a sacrifice and his limbs were scattered to all the quarters of space. By this great sacrifice, the world's pattern is kept up. Action is a moral as well as a physical necessity for embodied beings.[2]
Brahma is also taken to be prakrti as in XIV, 3-4. Nature springs from the Divine and the entire activity of the world is traceable to it.
16. evam pravartitam cakram na 'nuvartayati
'ha yah aghayur indriyaramo mogham Martha sa jivah
(16) He who does not, in this world, help to turn the wheel thus set in motion, is evil in his nature, sensual in his delight, and he, 0 Partha (Arjuna), lives in vain.
In these verses the Vedic conception of sacrifice as an inter-change between gods and men is set in the larger context of the interdependence of beings in the cosmos. The deeds done in the sacrificial spirit are pleasing to God. God is the enjoyer of all sacrifices.[3] yajno vai visnuh[4] Sacrifice is the Supreme. It is also the law of life. The individual and the cosmos depend on each other. There is a constant interchange between human life and world life. He who works for himself lives in vain. The world is
