Mbh 12.121.2c — Mahabharata

Blessings and curse, pleasure and pain, righteousness and unrighteousness, strength and weakness, fortune and misfortune, merit and demerit, virtue and vice, desire and aversion, season and month, night and day, and hour, heedfulness and heedlessness, joy and anger, peace and self-restraint, destiny and exertion, salvation and condemnation, fear and fearlessness, injury and abstention from injury, penances and sacrifice and rigid abstinence, poison and healthy food, the beginning, the middle, and the end, the result of all murderous acts, insolence, insanity, arrogance, pride, patience, policy, impolicy, powerlessness and power, respect, disrespect, decay and stability, humility, charity, fitness of time and unfitness of time, falsehood, wisdom, truth, belief, disbelief, impotence, trade, profit, loss, success, defeat, fierceness, mildness, death, acquisition and non-acquisition, agreement and disagreement, that which should be done and that which should not be done, strength and weakness, malice and goodwill, righteousness and unrighteousness, shame and shamelessness, modesty, prosperity and adversity, energy, acts, learning, eloquence, keenness of understanding,--all these, O Yudhishthira, are forms of Chastisement in this world. Hence, Chastisement is exceedingly multiform. If Chastisement had not existed, all creatures would have ground one another. Through fear of Chastisement, O Yudhishthira, living creatures do not slay one another. The subjects, O king, always protected by Chastisement, enhance the might of their ruler. It is for this that Chastisement is regarded as the foremost refuge of all. Chastisement, O king, quickly sets the world on the path of righteousness. Dependent upon truth, righteousness exists in the Brahmanas. Endued with righteousness, foremost of Brahmanas became attached to the Vedas. From the Vedas the sacrifices flow. Sacrifices gratify the deities. The deities, being gratified, commend the denizens of the earth to Indra.

Mbh 12.121.2c · Mahabharata · SANTI PARVA

Themes in this passage

Dharma in other traditions

Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.

1 John 3:7 · Bible · 1 John

Let no one forget his own duty for the sake of another's, however great; let a man, after he has discerned his own duty, be always attentive to his duty.

Dhp 12.166 · Dhammapada · Self

There shall be no sin (imputed) unto those who believe and do good works for what they may have eaten (in the past). So be mindful of your duty (to Allah), and believe, and do good works; and again: be mindful of your duty, and believe; and once again: be mindful of your duty, and do right. Allah loveth the good.

Quran 5:93 · Quran · The Food

Thus it was that when the Tao was lost, its attributes appeared; when its attributes were lost, benevolence appeared; when benevolence was lost, righteousness appeared; and when righteousness was lost, the proprieties appeared.

Tao Te Ching 38.5 · Tao Te Ching