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never sleep. He should abstain from meat. He should always read the Vedas and the scriptures. He should always speak the |
truth, and practise self-denial. He should eat Vighasa (viz., what remains after serving the deities and guests). Indeed, he should |
be hospitable towards all that come to his abode. He should always eat Amrita (viz., the food that remains in the house after all |
the family, including guests and servants have eaten) He should duly observe all rites and perform sacrifices.'" |
"Yudhishthira said, "How may one come to be regarded as always observant of fasts? How may one become observant of |
vows? How, O king, may one come to be an eater of Vighasa? By doing what may one be said to be found of guest?'" |
"Bhishma said, 'He who takes food only morning and evening at the prescribed hours and abstains from all food during the |
interval between, is said to be an abstainer from food. He who has congress with only his wedded wife and that only at her |
season, is said to be observant of the vow of Brahmacharya. By always making gifts, one comes to be regarded as truthful in |
speech. By abstaining from all meat obtained from animals slaughtered for nothing, one becomes an abstainer from meat.[417] |
By making gifts one becomes cleansed of all sins, and by abstaining from sleep during daytime one comes to be regarded as |
always awake. He who always eats what remains after serving the needs of guests and servants is said to always eat Amrita. He |
who abstains from eating till Brahmanas have eaten (of that food), is regarded as conquering heaven by such abstention. He |
who eats what remains after serving the deities, the Pitris, and relatives and dependants, is said to eat Vighasa. Such men |
acquire many regions of felicity in the abode of Brahman himself. There, O king, they dwell in the company of Apsaras and |
Gandharvas. Indeed, they sport and enjoy all sports of delight in those regions, with the deities and guests and the Pitris in their |
company, and surrounded by their own children and grandchildren. Even such becomes their high end.'" |
"Yudhishthira said, 'People are seen to make diverse kinds of gifts unto the Brahmanas. What, however, is the difference, O |
grandsire, between the giver and the receiver?'" |
"Bhishma said, 'The Brahmana accepts gifts from him that is righteous, and from him that is unrighteous. If the giver happens |
to be righteous, the receiver incurs little fault. If on the other hand, the giver happens to be unrighteous the receiver sinks in |
hell. In this connection is cited an old history of the conversation between Vrishadarbhi and the seven Rishis, O Bharata. |
Kasyapa and Atri and Vasishtha and Bharadwaja and Gautama and Viswamitra and Jamadagni, and the chaste Arundhati (the |
wife of Vasishtha), all had a common maidservant whose name was Ganda. A Sudra of the name of Pasusakha married Ganda |
and became her husband. Kasyapa and others, in days of old, observed the austerest penances and roved over the world, |
desirous of attaining to the eternal region of Brahman by the aid of Yoga-meditation. About that time, O delighter of the Kurus, |
there occurred a severe drought. Afflicted by hunger, the whole world of living creatures became exceedingly weak. At a |
sacrifice which had been performed in former times by Sivi's son he had given away unto the Ritwiks a son of his as the |
sacrificial present. About this time, unendued with longevity as the prince was, he died of starvation. The Rishis named, |
afflicted with hunger, approached the dead prince and sat surrounding him. Indeed, those foremost of Rishis, beholding the son |
of him at whose sacrifice they had officiated, O Bharata, thus dead of starvation, began to cook the body in a vessel, impelled |
by the pangs of hunger. All food having disappeared from the world of men, those ascetics, desirous of saving their lives, had |
recourse, for purposes of sustenance, to such a miserable shift. While they were thus employed. Vrishadarbha's son, viz., king |
Saivya, in course of his roving, came upon those Rishis. Indeed, he met them on his way, engaged in cooking the dead body, |
impelled by the pangs of hunger.'" |
"The son of Vrishadarbha said, 'The acceptance of a gift (from me) will immediately relieve you all. Do you, therefore, accept |
a gift for the support of your bodies! Ye ascetics endued with wealth of penances, listen to me as I declare what wealth I have! |
That Brahmana who solicits me (for gifts) is ever dear to me. Verily, I shall give unto you a thousand mules. Unto each of you |
I shall give a thousand kine of white hair, foremost in speed, each accompanied by a bull, and each having a well-born calf, |
and, therefore, yielding milk. I shall also give unto you a thousand bulls of white complexion and of the best breed and capable |
of bearing heavy burdens. I shall also give you a large number of kine, of good disposition, the foremost of their kind, all fat, |
and each of which, having brought forth her first calf, is quick with her second.[418] Tell me what else I shall give of foremost |
villages, of grain, of barley, and of even the rarer and costly jewels. Do not seek to eat this food that is inedible. Tell me what I |
should give unto you for the support of your bodies!' |
"The Rishis said, 'O king, an acceptance of gifts from a monarch is very sweet at first but it is poison in the end. Knowing this |
well, why do you, O king, tempt us then with these offers? The body of the Brahmana is the field of the deities. By penance, it |
is purified. Then again, by gratifying the Brahmana, one gratifies the deities. If a Brahmana accepts the gifts made to him by |
the king, he loses, by such acceptance, the merit that he would otherwise acquire by his penances that day. Indeed, such |
acceptance consumes that merit even as a blazing conflagration consumes a forest. Let happiness be thine, O king, as the result |
of the gifts thou makest to those that solicit thee!' Saying these words unto them, they left the spot, proceeding by another way. |
The flesh those high-souled ones had intended to cook remained uncooked. Indeed, abandoning that flesh, they went away, and |
entered the woods in search of food. After this, the ministers of the king, urged by their master, entered those woods and |
plucking certain figs endeavoured to give them away unto those Rishis. The officers of the king filled some of those figs with |
gold and mixing them with others sought to induce those ascetics to accept them. Atri took up some of those figs, and finding |
them heavy refused to take them. He said, 'We are not destitute of knowledge. We are not fools! We know that there is gold |
within these figs. We have our senses about us. Indeed, we are awake instead of being asleep. If accepted in this world, those |
will produce bitter consequence hereafter. He who seeks happiness both here and hereafter should never accept these.'" |
"Vasishtha said, 'If we accept even one gold coin, it will be counted as a hundred or even a thousand (in assigning the demerit |
that attaches to acceptance). If, therefore, we accept many coins, we shall surely attain to an unhappy end hereafter!'" |
Kasyapa said, 'All the paddy and barley on earth, all the gold and animals and women that occur in the world, are incapable of |
gratifying the desire of a single person. Hence, one possessed of wisdom should dispelling cupidity, adopt tranquillity!'" |
"Bharadwaja said, 'The horns of a Ruru, after their first appearance, begin to grow with the growth of the animal. The cupidity |
of man is even like this. It has no measure!'" |
"Gautama said, 'All the objects that exist in the world are incapable of gratifying even a single person. Man is even like the |
ocean, for he can never be filled (even as the ocean can never be filled by all the waters that are discharged into it by the |
rivers).'" |
"Viswamitra said, 'When one desire cherished by a person becomes gratified, there springs up immediately another whose |
gratification is sought and which pierces him like a shaft.'" |
"Jamadagni said, 'Abstention from accepting guts supports penances as their foundation. Acceptance, however, destroys that |
wealth (viz., the merit of penances).'" |
"Arundhati said, 'Some people are of opinion that things of the world may be stored with a view to spend them upon the |
acquisition of righteousness (by gifts and sacrifices). I think, however, that the acquisition of righteousness is better than that of |
worldly wealth.'" |
"Ganda said, 'When these my lords, who are endued with great energy, are so very much afraid of this which seems to be a |
great terror a weak man as I am fear it the more.'" |
"Pasusakha said, 'The wealth there is in righteousness is very superior. There is nothing superior to it. That wealth is known to |
the Brahmans. I wait upon them as their servant, only for learning to value that wealth.'" |
"The Rishis (all together) said, 'Let happiness be his, as the result of the gifts he makes, who is the king of the people of this |
land. Let his gift be successful who has sent these fruits to us, enclosing gold within them.'" |
"Bhishma continued, 'Having said these words, those Rishis of steadfast vows, abandoning the figs having gold within them, |
left that spot and proceeded to whatever destination they liked.'" |
"The ministers said, 'O king, coming to know of the existence of gold within the figs, the Rishis have gone away! Let this be |
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