169.

Let him not cease to perform day by day, according to the preceding rules, the five great sacraments; and, having taken a lawful consort, let him dwell in his house during the second period of his life.

CHAP.

CHAP. VI.

On Devotion; or on the Third and Fourth Orders.

1.

VI.

HAVING thus remained in the order of a house- CHAP. keeper, as the law ordains, let the twice-born man, 'who had before completed his studentship, dwell in a forest, his faith being firm and his organs wholly 'subdued.

2. When the father of a family, perceives his 'muscles become flaccid and his hair gray, and sees the child of his child, let him then seek refuge in a forest:

3. Abandoning all food eaten in towns, and all his • household utensils, let him repair to the lonely wood, committing the care of his wife to her sons, or 'accompanied by her, if she chuse to attend him.

4.

Let him take up his consecrated fire, and all 'his domestick implements of making oblations to it, and, departing from the town to the forest, let him dwell in it with complete power over his organs of sense and of action.

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5. With many sorts of pure food, such as holy sages used to eat, with green herbs, roots, and fruit, let him perform the five great sacraments be'fore mentioned, introducing them with due cere⚫ monies.

CHAP.

VI.

6

6. Let him wear a black antelope's hide, or

a

vesture of bark; let him bathe evening and morning; let him suffer the hairs of his head, his beard, ⚫ and his nails to grow continually.

7. From such food, as himself may eat, let him,

to the utmost of his power, make offerings and give alms; and with presents of water, roots, and fruit, let him honour those who visit his hermitage.

8. Let him be constantly engaged in reading the
Véda; patient of all extremities, universally bene-
volent, with a mind intent on the Supreme Being;
a perpetual giver, but no receiver of gifts; with
tender affection for all animated bodies.

9. 6
Let him, as the law directs, make oblations
on the hearth with three sacred fires; not omitting
in due time the ceremonies to be performed at the
conjunction and opposition of the moon.

10. Let him also perform the sacrifice ordained in 'honour of the lunar constellations, make the pre'scribed offering of new grain, and solemnize holy rites every four months, and at the winter and summer solstices.

11. With pure grains, the food of ancient sages, growing in the vernal and autumnal seasons, and brought home by himself, let him severally make, as the law ordains, the oblations of cakes and boiled grain ;

12. And, having presented to the gods, that purest 6 oblation,

oblation, which the wild woods produced, let him CHAP.

eat what remains, together with some native salt, ' which himself collected.

VI.

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13. Let him eat green herbs, flowers, roots, and

fruit, that grow on earth or in water, and the productions of pure trees, and oils formed in fruits.

14. ' Honey and flesh-meat he must avoid, and all 'sorts of mushrooms, the plant bhústrina, that named sigruca, and the fruit of the sléshmátaca.

15. In the month Aswina let him cast away the 'food of sages, which he before had laid up, and his vesture, then become old, and his herbs, roots, and fruit.

16. Let him not eat the produce of ploughed land, though abandoned by any man, who owns it, nor fruit and roots produced in a town, even though hunger oppress him.

17. He may eat what is mellowed by fire, and he may eat what is ripened by time; and either let him break hard fruits with a stone, or let his teeth serve as a pestle.

18. Either let him pluck enough for a day, or 'let him gather enough for a month; or let him col'lect enough for six months, or lay up enough for 6 a year.

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19. Having procured food, as he is able, he may eat it at eve or in the morning; or he may take

CHAP.

VI.

only every fourth, or or every eighth, such regular ' meal ;

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20. ' Or, by the rules of the lunar

penance, he may eat a mouthful less each day of the bright, and a mouthful more each day of the dark fortnight; or ' he may eat only once, at the close of each fortnight, à mess of boiled grains :

21. Or he may constantly live on flowers and roots, and on fruit matured by time, which has fallen spontaneously, strictly observing the laws ordained for hermits.

22. Let him slide backwards and forwards on the ground; or let him stand a whole day on tiptoe; or let him continue in motion rising and sitting alternately; but at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset, let him go to the waters and bathe.

23. In the hot season, let him sit exposed to five 'fires, four blazing around him with the sun above; in the rains, let him stand uncovered, without even a mantle, where the clouds pour the heaviest showers; in the cold season, let him wear humid vesture; and let him increase by degrees the austerity of his • devotion:

24. Performing his ablution at the three Savanas, 'let him give satisfaction to the manes and to the

gods; and, enduring harsher and harsher mortifica

tions, let him dry up his bodily frame.