CHAP.
IV.

mind to unrighteousness; for he may observe the speedy overthrow of iniquitous and sinful men.

172. Iniquity, committed in this world, produces 'not fruit immediately, but, like the earth, in due sea'son; and, advancing by little and little, it eradicates the man who committed it.

173. Yes; iniquity, once committed, fails not of producing fruit to him, who wrought it; if not in 'his own person, yet in his sons; or, if not in his 'sons, yet in his grandsons:

174. He grows rich for a while through unrighteous6 ness; then he beholds good things; then it is, that he vanquishes his foes; but he perishes at length from his whole root upwards.

175. LET a man continually take pleasure in truth, in justice, in laudable practices, and in purity; let 'him chastise those, whom he may chastise, in a legal ⚫ mode; let him keep in subjection his speech, his arm, and his appetite :

176. Wealth and pleasures, repugnant to law, let him shun; and even lawful acts, which may cause future pain, or be offensive to mankind.

177. Let him not have nimble hands, restless feet, or voluble eyes; let him not be crooked in his ways; let him not be flippant in his speech, nor intelligent ' in doing mischief.

178. Let him walk in the path of good men; the

path,

path, in which his parents and forefathers walked: CHAP. 'while he moves in that path, he can give no offence.

179. WITH an attendant on consecrated fire, a per'former of holy rites, and a teacher of the Véda, with his maternal uncle, with his guest or a dependant, 'with a child, with a man either aged or sick, with a physician, with his paternal kindred, with his re'lations by marriage, and with cousins on the side of ' his mother,

180. With his mother herself, or with his father, with his kinswomen, with his brother, with his son, his wife, or his daughter, and with his whole set of servants let him have no strife.

181. A house-keeper, who shuns altercation with 'those just mentioned, is released from all secret faults; and, by suppressing all such disputes, he obtains a victory over the following worlds:

182. 6 The teacher of the Véda secures him the world of BRAHMA'; his father, the world of the Sun,

or of the Prajapatis; his guest, the world of INDRA; 'his attendance on holy fire, the world of Dévas ;

183. His female relations, the world of celestial nymphs; his maternal cousins, the world of the Viswadévas; his relations by affinity, the world of waters; his mother and maternal uncle give him power on • earth;

184. Children, old men, poor dependants, and sick persons, must be considered as rulers of the pure 'ether,

s 2

IV.

CHAP.

IV.

ether; his elder brother, as equal to his father; his ' wife and son, as his own body;

185. His assemblage of servants, as his own shadow; his daughter, as the highest object of tenderness: "let him, therefore, when offended by any of those, bear the offence without indignation.

186. THOUGH permitted to receive presents, let him

avoid a habit of taking them; since, by taking many gifts, his divine light soon fades.

187. Let no man of sense, who has not fully informed himself of the law concerning gifts of particular things, accept a present, even though he pine ' with hunger.

188. The man who knows not that law, yet accepts gold or gems, land, a horse, a cow, food, raiment, oils or clarified butter, becomes mere ashes, like • wood consumed by fire:

6

189. 6

Gold and gems burn up his nourishment and life; land and a cow, his body; a horse, his eyes; raiment, his skin; clarified butter, his manly strength; oils, his progeny.

190. A twice-born man, void of true devotion, and 'not having read the Véda, yet eager to take a gift, sinks down together with it, as with a boat of stone in deep water.

law, be

191. Let him then, who knows not the
fearful of presents from this or that giver; since an

ignorant man,

even by a small gift, may become CHAP.

helpless as a cow in a bog.

192. Let no man, apprized of this law, present even 'water to a priest, who acts like a cat, nor to him, 'who acts like a bittern, nor to him, who is unlearned in the Véda ;

6

193. Since property, though legally gained, if it be given to either of those three, becomes preju'dicial in the next world, both to the giver and re'ceiver:

194. As he, who tries to pass over deep water in a boat of stone, sinks to the bottom, so those two ignorant men, the receiver and the giver, sink to a region of torment.

195. A covetous wretch, who continually displays the flag of virtue, a pretender, a deluder of the 'people, is declared to be the man who acts like a cat he is an injurious hypocrite, a detractor from 'the merits of all men.

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196. A twice-born man, with his eyes dejected, morose, intent on his own advantage, sly, and falsely

' demure, is he, who acts like a bittern.

197. Such priests, as live like bitterns, and such

as demean themselves like cats, fall by that sinful 'conduct into the hell called Andhatámisra.

198.

LET no man, having committed sin, perform ' a penance, under the pretext of austere devotion,

CHAP.
IV.

disguising his crime under fictitious religion, and deceiving both women and low men:

199. Such impostors, though Bráhmens, are despised in the next life and in this, by all who pronounce holy texts; and every religious act fraudulently performed goes to evil beings.

200. He, who has no right to distinguishing marks, yet gains a subsistence by wearing false marks of distinction, takes to himself the sin committed by those who are entitled to such marks, and shall again be born from the womb of a brute animal.

201. NEVER let him bathe in the pool of another man; for he, who bathes in it without licence, takes to himself a small portion of the sins, which the 'maker of the pool has committed.

202. He, who appropriates to his own use the carriage, the bed, the seat, the well, the garden, or the house of another man, who has not deliver

ed them to him, assumes a fourth part of the guilt of their owner.

203. In rivers, in ponds dug by holy persons, and in lakes, let him always bathe; in rivulets also, and in torrents.

204. A WISE man should constantly discharge all the moral duties, though he perform not constantly the ceremonies of religion; since he falls low, if, while he performs ceremonial acts only, he discharge not his moral duties.

205. NEVER