Garudapurana 2.12

Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa — 12
Śrī Kṛṣṇa said: / Thus has the determination of life been explained to you, O Tārkṣya, / for the benefit of humans and for the cessation of the state of a ghost.

There are eighty-four hundred thousand, and four varieties of creatures: / egg-born, sweat-born, sprout-born, and womb-born.

Twenty-one hundred thousand are proclaimed to be egg-born; / so also are declared the sweat-born, and the sprout-born in order;

So also are declared the womb-born, humans and other beings. / Among all creatures, indeed, human status is difficult to attain.

The state of possessing five senses is attained through great merits. / Brāhmaṇas, Kṣatriyas, Vaiśyas, Śūdras, and castes beyond them:

Washerman, leatherworker, actor, cane-weaver, / fisherman, Meda, and Bhilla—these seven are remembered as outcasts.

Divided into Mlecchas, Tumbas, and others, caste divisions are manifold. / Among all creatures indeed, divisions of kinds exist by the thousands.

Among all creatures, distinctions are indeed by the thousands. / Eating, sexual intercourse, sleep, fear, and anger as well—

Pertain to all creatures; supreme discernment is hard to attain. / In the form of having one leg and so forth, distinctions of bodies are manifold.

Where the black antelope roams is called the land of dharma; / all deities beginning with Brahmā dwell there on every side.

Among beings, living creatures are best; among living creatures, those living by intellect; / among the intelligent, humans are best; among humans, brāhmaṇas are remembered.

One who, having attained human birth, the sole means to heaven or liberation, / does not achieve either of the two, has surely deceived oneself.

One with a hundred desires a thousand; one with a thousand strives to make a hundred thousand; / a lord of a hundred thousand desires a kingdom; even a king desires to gain the entire earth;

An emperor desires godhood; in godhood, to become the lord of all gods; / the lord of gods desires an even higher state—still craving does not cease.

Overcome by craving, one goes to hell; / but those few freed from craving attain residence in heaven.

A person who is self-dependent in this world is certainly happy. / Sound, touch, form, taste, and smell are their properties;

And likewise, one who is dependent on sense-objects is certainly miserable.

The deer, elephant, moth, bee, and fish are destroyed by just one of the five; / how can a negligent one not be slain, who pursues all five with the five?

Devoted to father and mother in childhood, devoted to a beloved in youth, / and devoted to sons and grandsons at the end—a fool is never devoted to the self.

A man bound with fetters of iron and wood is released; / but one bound with the fetters of children and wife is never released.

One alone commits sins, and a crowd of people enjoys the fruit; / the enjoyers are freed, while the agent is tainted by the fault.

No one conquers death—whether a child, an elder, or even a youth, / or experiencing happiness, sorrow, and the like; one comes and goes again.

While all look on, the dead person abandons everything. / A creature is born alone, and alone it dissolves.

Alone one experiences good deeds, and alone evil deeds. / Leaving behind the dead body on the ground like a log or a lump of earth,

Relatives turn away and depart; dharma alone follows him. / Riches turn back in the house, friends and relatives from the cremation ground;

Fire takes the body; good and evil deeds depart [with him]. / The body is burned by fire; merit and sin remain together [with the soul].

Whether auspicious or sinful, a person experiences it everywhere. / The wealth that was not given to supplicants before the sun set—

I do not know whose that wealth will be in the morning! / His wealth cries aloud: “Who will be my master?”

It was not given to the foremost twice-born, nor for the sake of helping others. / Whatever has been obtained, much or little, from merit done in a former birth,

Knowing it to be such, wealth should be given for the sake of dharma. / By wealth, dharma is sustained with a mind purified by faith.

Dharma bereft of faith bears fruit neither here nor hereafter; / and from dharma wealth arises, from dharma desire also arises.

dharma alone leads to liberation; therefore, one should practice dharma.
dharma is accomplished through faith, not through great heaps of wealth.

Indeed, sages possessing nothing but endowed with faith have gone to heaven.
Whatever is offered into the fire, given away, whatever austerity is performed or action done without faith,
is said to be 'asat', O bird; it bears no fruit here or after death.

Thus ends the twelfth chapter, named 'Ascertaining that the Deceased is Accompanied by Dharma Alone', in the dialogue between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Garuḍa, in the Pretakalpa of the Dharmakāṇḍa, in the second part of the Latter Section of the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa.