125. At the sráddha of the gods he may entertain two Bráhmens; at that of his father, paternal grandfather, and paternal great-grandfather three; or one only at that of the gods, and one at that for his three paternal ancestors: though he abound in wealth, let him not be solicitous to entertain a large company.

126. A large company destroys these five advantages; reverence to priests, propriety of time and place, purity, and the acquisition of virtuous Bráhmens: let him not therefore, endeavour to feed a superfluous number.

127. This act of due honour to departed souls, on the dark day of the moon, is famed by the appellation of pitrya, or ancestral: the legal ceremony, in honour of departed spirits, rewards with continual fruit, a man engaged in such obsequies.

128. Oblations to the gods and to ancestors should be given to a most reverend Bráhmen, perfectly conversant with the Véda; since what is given to him produces the greatest reward.

129. By entertaining one learned man at the oblation to the gods and at that to ancestors, he gains more exalted fruit than by feeding a multitude, who know not the holy texts.

130. Let him inquire into the ancestry, even in a remote. degree, of a Bráhmen, who has advanced to the end of the Véda: such a man, if sprung from good men, is a fit partaker of oblations to gods and to ancestors; such a man may justly be called an atit'hi, or guest.

131. Surely, though a million of men, unlearned in holy texts, were to receive food, yet a single man, learned in scripture, and fully satisfied with his entertainment, would be of more value than all of them together.

132. Food, consecrated to the gods and the manes, must be presented to a theologian of eminent learning; for certainly, when hands are smeared with blood, they cannot be cleaned with blood only, nor can sin be removed by the company of sinners.

133. As many mouthfuls as an unlearned man shall swallow at an oblation to the gods and to ancestors, so many

redhot iron balls must the giver of the sráddha swallow in the next world.*

134. Some Bráhmens are intent on scriptural knowledge; others, on austere devotion; some are intent both on religious austerity and on the study of the Véda; others on the performance of sacred rites:

135. Oblations to the manes of ancestors ought to be placed with care before such as are intent on sacred learning: but offerings to the gods may be presented, with due ceremonies, to Bráhmens of all the four descriptions.

136. There may be a Bráhmen, whose father had not studied the scripture, though the son has advanced to the end of the Véda; or there may be one, whose son has not read the Véda, though the father had travelled to the end of it:

137. Of those two let mankind consider him as the superiour, whose father had studied the scripture, yet for the sake of performing rites with holy texts, the other is worthy of honour.

138. Let no man, at the prescribed obsequies, give food to an intimate friend; since advantage to a friend must be procured by gifts of different property: to that Brahmen let the performer of a sráddha give food, whom he considers neither as a friend nor as a foe.

139. For him, whose obsequies and offerings of clarified butter are provided chiefly through friendship, no fruit is reserved in the next life, on account either of his obsequies or of his offerings.

140. The man, who, through delusion of intellect, forms temporal connexions by obsequies, is excluded from heavenly mansions, as a giver of the sráddha for the sake of friendship, and the meanest of twice-born men :

141. Such a convivial present, by men of the three highest classes, is called the gift of Pisáchas, and remains fixed here below, like a blind cow in one stall.

142. As a husbandman, having sown seed in a barren

"Spears" should be included with "iron balls" as among the number of things to be swallowed in the next world, by the giver of the sráddha.

soil, reaps no grain, thus a performer of holy rites, having given clarified butter to an unlearned Bráhmen, attains no reward in heaven;

143. But a present made, as the law ordains, to a learned theologian, renders both the giver and the receiver partakers of good fruits in this world and in the next.

144. If no learned Bráhmen be at hand, he may at his pleasure invite a friend to the sráddha, but not a foe, be he ever so learned; since the oblation, being eaten by a foe, loses all fruit in the life to come.

145. With great care let him give food at the sráddha to a priest, who has gone through the scripture, but has chiefly studied the Rigvéda; to one, who has read all the branches, but principally those of the Yajush; or to one who has finished the whole, with particular attention to the Sáman:

146. Of that man whose oblation has been eaten, after due honours, by any one of those three Bráhmens, the ancestors are constantly satisfied as high as the seventh person, or to the sixth degree.

147. This is the chief rule in offering the sráddha to the gods and to ancestors; but the following may be considered as a subsidiary rule, where no such learned priests can be found, and is ever observed by good men :

148. Let him entertain his maternal grandfather, his maternal uncle, the son of his sister, the father of his wife, his spiritual guide, the son of his daughter, or her husband, his maternal cousin, his officiating priest, or the performer of his sacrifice.

149. For an oblation to the gods, let not the man who knows what is law, scrupulously inquire into the parentage of a Bráhmen; but for a prepared oblation to ancestors let him examine it with strict care.

150. Those Bráhmens, who have committed any inferiour theft or any of the higher crimes, who are deprived of virility, or who profess a disbelief in a future state, MENU has pronounced unworthy of honour at a sráddha to the gods or to ancestors.

151. To a student in theology, who has not read the Véda, to a man punished for past crimes by being born

without a prepuce, to a gamester, and to such as perform many sacrifices for other men, let him never give food at the sacred obsequies.

152. Physicians, image-worshippers for gain, sellers of meat, and such as live by low traffick, must be shunned in oblations both to the deities and to progenitors.

153. A public servant of the whole town, or of the prince, a man with whitlows on his nails, or with black-yellow teeth, an opposer of his preceptor, a deserter of the sacred fire, and an usurer,

154. A phthisical man, a feeder of cattle, one omitting the five great sacraments, a contemner of Bráhmens, a younger brother married before the elder, an elder brother not married before the younger, and a man who subsists by the wealth of many relations,

155. A dancer, one who has violated the rule of chastity in the first or fourth order, the husband of a Súdrà, the son of a twice-married woman, a man who has lost one eye, and a husband in whose house an adulterer dwells,

156. One who teaches the Véda for wages, and one who gives wages to such a teacher, the pupil of a Súdra, and the Súdra preceptor, a rude speaker, and the son of an adulteress, born either before or after the death of the husband,

157. A forsaker, without just cause, of his mother, father or preceptor, and a man who forms a connexion, either by scriptural or connubial affinity, with great sinners,

158. A house-burner, a giver of poison, an eater of food offered by the son of an adulteress, a seller of the moonplant (a species of mountain-rue*), a navigator of the ocean, a poetical encomiast, an oilman, and a suborner of perjury,

159. A wrangler with his father, an employer of gamesters for his own benefit, a drinker of intoxicating spirits, a man punished for sin with elephantiasis, one of evil repute, a cheat, and a seller of liquids,

160. A maker of bows and arrows, the husband of a younger sister married before the elder of the whole blood,

* It is not the mountain-rue, but the swallow-wort (the Asclepias acida).

an injurer of his friend, the keeper of a gaming-house, and a father instructed in the Véda by his own son,

161. An epileptick person, one who has the erysipelas or the leprosy, a common informer, a lunatick, a blind man, and a despiser of scripture, must all be shunned.

162. A tamer of elephants, bulls, horses, or camels, a man who subsists by astrology, a keeper of birds, and one who teaches the use of arms,

163. He, who diverts watercourses, and he, who is gratified by obstructing them, he, who builds houses for gain, a messenger, and a planter of trees for pay,

164. A breeder of sporting-dogs, a falconer, a seducer of damsels, a man delighting in mischief, a Bráhmen living as a Súdra, a sacrificer to the inferiour gods only,

165. He, who observes not approved customs, and he, who regards not prescribed duties, a constant importunate asker of favours, he, who supports himself by tillage, a clubfooted man, and one despised by the virtuous,

166. A shepherd, a keeper of buffalos, the husband of a twice-married woman, and the remover of dead bodies for pay, are to be avoided with great care.

167. Those lowest of Bráhmens, whose manners are contemptible, who are not admissible into company at a repast, an exalted and learned priest must avoid at both sráddhas.

168. A Bráhmen unlearned in holy writ, is extinguished in an instant like a fire of dry grass: to him the oblation must not be given; for the clarified butter must not be poured on ashes.

169. WHAT retribution is prepared in the next life for the giver of food to men inadmissible into company, at the sráddha to the gods and to ancestors, I will now declare without omission.

170. On that food, which has been given to Bráhmens who have violated the rules of their order, to the younger brother married before the elder, and to the rest who are not admissible into company, the Racshases eagerly feast.

171. He, who makes a marriage-contract with the connubial fire, while his elder brother continues unmarried, is called a perivéttrì; and the elder brother a perivitti :