out of the town; they must not have the use of entire vessels; their sole wealth must be dogs and asses:

52. Their clothes must be the mantles of the deceased; their dishes for food, broken pots; their ornaments, rusty iron; continually must they roam from place to place:

53. Let no man, who regards his duty religious and civil, hold any intercourse with them; let their transactions be confined to themselves, and their marriages only between equals:

54. Let food be given to them in potsherds, but not by the hands of the giver; and let them not walk by night in cities or towns:

55. By day they may walk about for the purpose of work, distinguished by the king's badges; and they shall carry out the corpse of every one, who dies without kindred: such is the fixed rule.

56. They shall always kill those, who are to be slain by the sentence of the law, and by the royal warrant; and let them take the clothes of the slain, their beds, and their ornaments.

57. HIM, who was born of a sinful mother, and consequently in a low class, but is not openly known, who, though worthless in truth, bears the semblance of a worthy man, let people discover by his acts:

58. Want of virtuous dignity, harshness of speech, cruelty, and habitual neglect of prescribed duties, betray in this world the son of a criminal mother.

59. Whether a man of debased birth assume the character of his father or of his mother, he can at no time conceal his origin:

60. He, whose family had been exalted, but whose parents were criminal in marrying, has a base nature, according as the offence of his mother was great or small.

61. In whatever country such men are born, as destroy the purity of the four classes, that country soon perishes, together with the natives of it.

62. Desertion of life, without reward, for the sake of preserving a priest or a cow, a woman or a child, may cause the beatitude of those base-born tribes.

63. Avoiding all injury to animated beings, veracity, abstaining from theft, and from unjust seizure of property, cleanliness, and command over the bodily organs, form the compendious system of duty, which MENU has ordained for the four classes.

64. SHOULD the tribe sprung from a Bráhmen, by a Súdrà-woman, produce a succession of children by the marriages of its women with other Bráhmens, the low tribe shall be raised to the highest in the seventh generation.

65. As the son of a Súdra may thus attain the rank of a Bráhmen, and as the son of a Bráhmen may sink to a level with Súdras, even so must it be with him, who springs from a Cshatriya; even so with him, who was born of a Vaisya.

66. If there be a doubt, as to the preference between him, who was begotten by a Bráhmen for his pleasure, but not in wedlock, on a Súdrà-woman, and him who was begotten by a Súdra on a Bráhmenì,

67. Thus is it removed: he, who was begotten by an exalted man on a base woman, may by his good acts become respectable; but he, who was begotten on an exalted woman by a base man, must himself continue base :

68. Neither of the two (as the law is fixed) shall be girt with a sacred string; not the former, because his mother was low; nor the second, because the order of the classes was inverted.

69. As good grain, springing from good soil, is in all respects excellent, thus a man, springing from a respectable father by a respectable mother, has a claim to the whole institution of the twice-born.

70. Some sages give a preference to the grain; others to the field; and others consider both field and grain; on this point the decision follows:

71. Grain, cast into bad ground, wholly perishes, and a good field, with no grain sown in it, is a mere heap of clods;

72. But since, by the virtue of eminent fathers, even the sons of wild animals, as Rishyasringa, and others, have been transformed into holy men revered and extolled, the paternal side, therefore, prevails.

73. BRAHMA' himself, having compared a Súdra, who

performs the duties of the twice-born, with a twice-born man, who does the acts of a Súdra, said: "Those two are neither equal nor unequal," that is, they are neither equal in rank, nor unequal in bad conduct.

74. LET such Bráhmens as are intent on the means of attaining the supreme godhead, and firm in their own duties, completely perform, in order, the six following acts:

75. Reading the Védas, and teaching others to read them," sacrificing, and assisting others to sacrifice, giving to the poor, if themselves have enough, and accepting gifts from the virtuous if themselves are poor, are the six prescribed acts of the first-born class;

76. But, among those six acts of a Bráhmen, three are his means of subsistence; assisting to sacrifice, teaching the Védas, and receiving gifts from a pure-handed giver.

77. Three acts of duty cease with the Bráhmen, and belong not to the Cshatriya; teaching the Védas, officiating at a sacrifice, and, thirdly, receiving presents :

78. Those three are also (by the fixed rule of law) forbidden to the Vaisya; since MENU, the lord of all men, prescribed not those acts to the two classes, military und commercial.

79. The means of subsistence, peculiar to the Cshatriya, are bearing arms, either held for striking or missile, to the Vaisya, merchandize, attending on cattle, and agriculture : but, with a view to the next life, the duties of both are almsgiving, reading, sacrificing.

80. Among the several occupations for gaining a livelihood the most commendable respectively for the sacerdotal, military, and mercantile classes, are teaching the Véda, defending the people, and commerce or keeping herds and flocks.

81. Yet a Bráhmen, unable to subsist by his duties just mentioned, may live by the duty of a soldier; for that is the next in rank.

82. If it be asked, how he must live, should he be unable to get a subsistence by either of those employments; the answer is, he may subsist as a mercantile man, applying himself in person to tillage and attendance on cattle:

83. But a Bráhmen and a Cshatriya, obliged to subsist by the acts of a Vaisya, must avoid with care, if they can live by keeping herds, the business of tillage, which gives great pain to sentient creatures, and is dependant on the labour of others, as bulls and so forth.

84. Some are of opinion, that agriculture is excellent; but it is a mode of subsistence which the benevolent greatly blame; for the iron-mouthed pieces of wood not only wound the earth, but the creatures dwelling in it.

85. If, through want of a virtuous livelihood, they cannot follow laudable occupations, they may then gain a competence of wealth by selling commodities usually sold by merchants, avoiding what ought to be avoided:

86. They must avoid selling liquids of all sorts, dressed grain, seeds of tila, stones, salt, cattle, and human creatures;

87. All woven cloth dyed red, cloth made of sana, of cshumá-bark, and of wool, even though not red; fruit, roots, and medicinal plants;

88. Water, iron, poison, flesh-meat, the moon-plant, and perfumes of any sort; milk, honey, butter-milk, clarified butter, oil of tila, wax, sugar, and blades of cus'agrass;

89. All beasts of the forest, as deer and the like; ravenous beasts, birds, and fish; spirituous liquors, níli, or indigo, and lácshá, or lac; and all beasts with uncloven hoofs.

90. But the Bráhmen-husbandman may at pleasure sell pure tila-seeds for the purpose of holy rites, if he keep them not long with a hope of more gain, and shall have produced them by his own culture:

91. If he apply seeds of tila to any purpose but food, anointing, and sacred oblations, he shall be plunged, in the shape of a worm, together with his parents, into the ordure of dogs.

92. By selling flesh-meat, lácshá, or salt, a Bráhmen immediately sinks low; by selling milk three days, he falls to a level with a Súdra;

93. And by selling the other forbidden commodities with

his own free will, he assumes in this world, after seven nights, the nature of a mere Vaisya.

94. Fluid things may, however, be bartered for other fluids, but not salt for any thing liquid; so may dressed grain for grain undressed, and tila-seeds for grain in the husk, equal weights or measures being given and taken.

95. A MILITARY man, in distress, may subsist by all these means, but at no time must he have recourse to the highest, or sacerdotal, function.

96. A man of the lowest class, who, through covetousness, lives by the acts of the highest, let the king strip of all his wealth and instantly banish :

97. His own office, though defectively performed, is preferable to that of another, though performed completely; for he, who without necessity discharges the duties of another class, immediately forfeits his own.

98. A MERCANTILE man, unable to subsist by his own duties, may descend even to the servile acts of a Súdra, taking care never to do what ought never to be done; but, when he has gained a competence, let him depart from service.

99. A MAN of the fourth class, not finding employment by waiting on the twice-born, while his wife and son are tormented with hunger, may subsist by handicrafts:

100. Let him principally follow those mechanical occupations, as joinery and masonry, or those various practical arts, as painting and writing, by following which, he may serve the twice-born.

101. SHOULD a Bráhmen, afflicted and pining through want of food, choose rather to remain fixed in the path of his own duty, than to adopt the practice of Vaisyas, let him act in this manner:

102. The Bráhmen, having fallen into distress, may receive gifts from any person whatever; for by no sacred rule can it be shown, that absolute purity can be sullied.

103. From interpreting the Véda, from officiating at sacrifices, or from taking presents, though in modes generally disapproved, no sin is committed by priests in distress; for they are as pure as fire or water.