The Laws of Manu

by The Laws of Manu (retail) (epub)

  [38] A priest who, if he owns anything, does not give away a horse dedicated to the Lord of Creatures as a sacrificial gift at the time of the kindling of the sacrificial fires becomes (equal to) someone who has no sacrificial fires. [39] A man who is full of faith and has conquered his sensory powers should perform other acts of merit; but he should never offer here on earth sacrifices that are accompanied by meagre sacrificial gifts (to the officiating priests). [40] A sacrifice accompanied by a meagre sacrificial gift annihilates the (sacrificer’s) sensory powers, fame, heaven, lifespan, renown, progeny, and livestock. Therefore a man with meagre wealth should not sacrifice.

  [41] A priest who, though a priest of the daily fire sacrifice, intentionally turns his back on his fires should follow the ‘Moon-course’ vow for a month, for that (act) is equal to homicide. [42] Those who receive money from a servant and (use it to) offer a daily fire sacrifice are despised among those who expound the Veda, for they are officiating priests for servants. [43] The one who gives (the money) would cross over the dangers by treading with his foot on the head of those ever ignorant men who worship a servant’s fire.

  [44] A man who fails to perform a prescribed act, or commits a disapproved act, or becomes addicted to sensory objects, should perform a restoration. [45] Wise men know that a restoration is for an evil committed unintentionally; some say, on the evidence of the revealed canon, it is also for one done intentionally. [46] An evil committed unintentionally is cleansed by reciting the Veda, but one committed intentionally, in confusion, (is cleansed) by different sorts of particular restorations. [47] A twice-born man who has incurred the need for restoration, through fate or by an act committed in a former (life), should not associate with good people until the restoration has been completed.

  [48] Some evil-hearted men undergo a reverse transformation of their form because of evil practices here (in this life), and some because of those committed in a former (life). [49] A man who steals gold has mangled fingernails; a man who drinks liquor has discoloured teeth; a priest-killer suffers from consumption; and a man who violates his guru’s marriage-bed has a diseased skin. [50] A slanderer has a putrid nose; an informer, a putrid mouth; a man who steals grain lacks a part of his body, but an adulterator of grain has a superfluity (of parts of his body). [51] A thief of food has indigestion; a thief of words is a mute; a man who steals clothing has white leprosy; and a horse-thief is lame. [52] [A man who steals lamps becomes blind, and a man who extinguishes lamps, one-eyed; a sadist is always sick, and an adulterer is rheumatic.] [53] Thus, because of the particular effects of their past actions, men who are despised by good people are born idiotic, mute, blind, deaf, and deformed. [54] Because of this, a restoration should always be performed for cleansing, since men who have not paid for their guilt are (re) born with distinguishing marks that make them the object of reproach.

  [55] Killing a priest, drinking liquor, stealing, violating the guru’s marriage-bed, and associating with those (who commit these acts) are called the major crimes. [56] Lying about one’s superior birth, slandering someone to the king, and obstinately displeasing one’s guru are equal to priest-killing. [57] Discontinuing the study of the Veda, reviling the Veda, giving false evidence, killing a friend, and eating food that is despised or not to be eaten are six (crimes) equal to drinking liquor. [58] Stealing a deposit, a man, a horse, silver, land, diamonds, or other gems is traditionally regarded as equal to the theft of gold. [59] Discharging semen into women born of the same womb as oneself, virgins, women of the lowest castes, or the wife of one’s friend or son, is regarded as equal to the violation of the guru’s marriage-bed.

  [60] Killing a cow, sacrificing for those unfit for the sacrifice, adultery with another man’s wife, selling one’s self, abandoning one’s guru, mother, father, or son, and (abandoning) the private study (of the Veda) and the (domestic sacrificial) fire; [61] allowing one’s younger brother to marry before one, marrying before one’s older brother, giving a daughter to either of those, or sacrificing for them; [62] corrupting a virgin, usury, breaking a vow, selling a pool, a pleasure-garden, a wife, or a child; [63] living as an outlaw, abandoning a relative, learning (the Veda) for pay, teaching (the Veda) for pay, selling things that should not be marketed; [64] superintending all kinds of mines, making large machines, injuring medicinal plants, living off one’s wife, using magic spells, and performing (magic) rituals involving the use of roots; [65] cutting down green trees for firewood, undertaking acts for one’s own sake only, and eating forbidden food; [66] neglecting to kindle the sacrificial fires, stealing, failing to pay debts, studying bad teachings, and working as a travelling bard; [67] stealing grain, base metals, or livestock; having sex with a woman who drinks wine; killing a woman, servant, commoner, or ruler; and professing atheism, are the minor crimes.

  [68] Causing an injury to a priest, smelling wine or things that are not to be smelled, crookedness, and sexual union with a man are traditionally said to cause loss of caste. [69] Killing a donkey, horse, camel, deer, elephant, goat, sheep, fish, snake, or buffalo should be recognized as the cause of (sinking to the status of) a mixed caste. [70] Receiving property from reviled people, trading, servility to servants, and telling lies should be recognized as making (the offender) an unworthy receptacle for charity. [71] Killing worms, bugs, or birds; eating food with wine; stealing fruit, firewood, or flowers; and instability cause defilement.

  [72] Learn properly the particular vows by which all of these guilts just described are individually expunged.

  [73] A priest-killer should build a hut in the forest and live there for twelve years to purify himself, eating food that he has begged for and using the skull of a corpse as his flag. [74] Or he may, by his own wish, make himself the target for knowledgeable armed men; or throw himself three times, head first, into a blazing fire. [75] Or he may offer a horse-sacrifice or (other sacrifices called) ‘Heaven-conquering’, ‘Cow-impelling’, ‘Wide-conquering’, ‘All-conquering’, ‘Triple’, or ‘Fire-praise’. [76] Or he may walk a thousand miles to dispel the priest-killing, reciting one of the Vedas, eating little, and restraining his sensory powers. [77] Or he may give all that he owns to a priest who knows the Veda, enough property to live on, (or) a house and all its furnishings. [78] Or he may eat food fit for an oblation and walk the length of the Sarasvatī river against the current; or he may restrain his eating and recite one entire collection of a Veda three times.

  [79] Or he may shave his head and live on the edge of a village or in a cowpen, or in a hermitage or at the foot of a tree, and take his delight in doing good to cows and priests. [80] Or he may without hesitation give up his life’s breath for the sake of a priest or a cow, for anyone who saves a cow or a priest is freed from priest-killing. [91] He is freed by fighting in defence of a priest three times, or by winning his entire property back for him, or by losing his life’s breath for this cause. [82] By keeping his vow constantly in this way, chaste and with a concentrated mind, at the end of the twelfth year he dispels his priest-killing.

  [83] Or he is freed by announcing his own guilt to the gods on earth in an assembly of the gods of men, when he has performed the final bath of ablution in a horse-sacrifice. [84] The priest is said to be the root of the law, and the ruler is the tip; therefore he is purified by announcing his guilt in an assembly of these men. [85] By his very birth a priest is a deity even for the gods and the only authority for people in this world, for the Veda is the foundation in this matter. [86] If even three men who know the Veda declare the thorough redemption of errors, that serves to purify those (errors), for the speech of the learned is a purifier. [87] By following any of these rules with a concentrated mind, a priest through his self-mastery dispels the evil created by priest-killing. [88] The same vow should be undertaken by anyone who has killed a still-indistinct embryo, a ruler or commoner engaged in a sacrifice, or a woman who has bathed at the end of her menstrual period; [89] or by anyone who has told a lie in giving evidence, or stubbornly oppose
d his guru, or stolen a deposit, or killed a woman or a friend. [90] This cleansing has been declared for killing a twice-born man unintentionally; but no redemption is ordained for killing a priest intentionally.

  [91] A twice-born man so deluded that he has drunk liquor should drink boiling-hot liquor, and when his body has been scalded by it he is freed from that offence. [92] Or he may drink boiling-hot cow’s urine, water, milk, clarified butter, or liquid cowdung until he dies. [93] Or, to dispel (the crime of) drinking liquor, for a year he may eat grains (of rice) or oilcake once a day, at night, wearing a hair-shirt, with his own hair matted, and carrying a flag. [94] For liquor is the defiling dirt excreted from rice, and dirt is said to be evil; therefore a priest, ruler, or commoner should not drink liquor. [95] Three kinds of liquor should be distinguished: made from sugar, made from ground rice, and made from honey; just as priests should not drink the one, so (they should not drink) any of them.

  [96] Wine, meat, liquor, and strong decoctions are the food of genies, ogres, and ghouls; a priest who eats the oblation to the gods should not eat that. [97] A drunken priest confused by drunkenness might fall on something impure or even pronounce a Vedic text or do something else that should not be done. [98] If the Veda that is in his body is even once flooded with wine, his priestliness disappears and he becomes a servant.

  [99] The various different redemptions for drinking liquor have thus been described; after that I will explain the redemption for stealing gold.

  [100] A priest who has stolen gold should go to the king, declare his own act, and said, ‘Sir, punish me.’ [101] The king, seizing a club, should himself strike him once; the thief is purified by the corporal or capital punishment, but a priest by mere inner heat. [102] A twice-born man who wishes to dispel by inner heat the defilement that comes from stealing gold should wear rags, go to the wilderness, and carry out the vow of a priest-killer.

  [103] By means of these vows a twice-born man may dispel the evil caused by theft. But he may dispel (the evil of) having sex with his guru’s wife by the following vows:

  [104] A man who has violated his guru’s marriage-bed should declare his error and sleep on a heated iron bed or embrace a red-hot metal cylinder, and by his death he is cleaned. [105] Or he himself may cut off his penis and testicles, hold them in his two cupped hands, and set out toward the southwest region of Ruin, walking straight ahead until he dies. [106] Or he may carry a club shaped like a bedpost, wear rags, grow a beard, concentrate his mind, and carry out the ‘Painful’ vow of the Lord of Creatures for a year in a deserted forest. [107] Or, to dispel (the crime of violating) his guru’s marriage-bed, he should restrain his sensory powers and carry out the ‘Moon-course’ vow for three months, eating food fit for an oblation or barley-broth.

  [108] By means of these vows, people who have committed major crimes may dispel their defilement; but people who have committed minor crimes can do it by the following various vows:

  [109] A man who has committed the minor crime of killing a cow should drink barley(-broth) for a month; he should have his head shaved and live in the cowpen, wrapped in (the cow’s) hide. [110] For two months he should restrain his sensory powers and eat very little food, without alkalines or salt, at every fourth mealtime, and bathe in cow’s urine. [111] By day he should follow the cows and remain standing, inhaling their dust; by night he should give them obedience and reverence and sit in the heroic posture. [112] Restrained and ungrudging, he should stand behind them when they stand, move behind them when they move, and sit when they lie down. [113] When a cow is ill, or threatened by danger from thieves, tigers, and so forth, or has fallen down or got stuck in the mud, he should free her (even) by (giving up) his whole life’s breath. [114] In the heat, or rain, or cold, or strong wind, he should not make a shelter for himself until he has made one for the cow, to the best of his ability. [115] If a cow eats or a calf drinks in his own or anyone else’s house, field, or granary, he should not tell. [116] If a man who has killed a cow follows a cow in this way, in three months he dispels the evil caused by cow-killing. [117] And when he has properly fulfilled this vow he should give ten cows and a bull to men who know the Vedas, and if he does not have them, (he should give) all he has.

  [118] Twice-born men who have committed a minor crime, except for someone who has shed his semen in violation of a vow, should carry out the same vow (as for cow-killing) or the ‘Moon-course’ vow, to become clean. [119] But a man who has shed his semen in violation of a vow should sacrifice a one-eyed donkey to Ruin at a crossroads at night, according to the rules for the domestic sacrifice. [120] He should make an oblation into the fire in accordance with the rules and then offer oblations of melted butter to the Wind, Indra, the Guru, and Fire, while reciting the verse that begins, ‘All over me’. [121] When a twice-born man who has undertaken a vow sheds his semen out of lust, those who understand the law and expound the Veda call that a violation of the vow. [122] The brilliant energy of the Veda in a man who has undertaken a vow goes, if he has shed his semen, into four gods: the Wind, Indra the much-invoked, the Guru, and Fire. [123] If this error is committed, he should put on the skin of a donkey and go begging from seven houses, proclaiming his own act. [124] Living on the food that he has begged from them once a day, washing at sunrise, noon, and sunset, after a year he becomes clean.

  [125] Anyone who intentionally commits any of the acts that cause a loss of caste should carry out the ‘(Painful) Heating’ vow, or if unintentionally, the ‘Painful’ vow of the Lord of Creatures. [126] For acts that degrade one to the status of a mixed caste and for those that make (the offender) an unworthy receptacle for charity, the cleansing is the ‘Moon-course’ vow for a month; and for acts that cause defilement, he should be scalded with barley-broth for three days.

  [127] One fourth of (the punishment for) priest-killing is traditionally regarded as (the punishment) for the killing of a ruler, one eighth for (killing) a commoner, and it should be one sixteenth for (killing) a servant who knows his place. [128] But if a priest kills a ruler unintentionally, he should give a thousand cows and a bull after he has properly fulfilled his vow. [129] Or he may spend three years carrying out the vow of a priest-killer, restraining his sensory powers, wearing his hair matted, and living at the foot of a tree far from a village. [130] If a priest has killed a commoner who knows his place he should carry out this very same restoration for a year, or he may give a hundred cows and a bull. [131] A man who has killed a servant should carry out all of this very same vow for six months, or he may give ten white cows and a bull to a priest.

  [132] If a man kills a cat or a mongoose, a blue jay, a frog, a dog, a lizard, an owl, or a crow, he should carry out the vow for killing a servant; [133] or he may drink milk for three nights, or walk a ten-mile road, or wash in a flowing river, or recite the hymn in which the Waters are the deity. [134] If a priest kills a snake, he should give a black iron spade to a priest; for (killing) an impotent man, a load of straw and a ‘small bean’ of lead; [135] for a boar, a pot of clarified butter; for a partridge, a bucket of sesame seeds; for a parrot, a two-year-old calf; for a curlew, a three-year-old (calf); [136] for killing a goose, a crane, a heron, a peacock, a monkey, a falcon, or a vulture, he should give a cow. [137] For killing a horse, he should give a garment; for an elephant, five black bulls; for a goat or sheep, a draught ox; for a donkey, a one-year-old (calf). [138] But for killing carnivorous wild animals he should give a milk-cow, and for non-carnivores, a heifer; for a camel, a ‘berry’. [139] To become clean after killing an unchaste woman of any of the four classes a man should give a leather bag, a bow, a billy-goat, or a sheep, individually according to the class. [140] If a twice-born man cannot wash away the killing of the snake and so forth by giving gifts, he should carry out a ‘Painful’ vow for each one, to dispel the evil.

  [141] But for killing a thousand creatures with bones, or an entire wagonload of creatures without bones, he should carry out the vow for killing a servant. [142] For killing those wit
h bones he should give something to a priest; and for injuring those without bones he is cleaned by suppressing his breath. [143] For cutting fruit trees, shrubs, vines, creepers, or flowering plants, a thousand Vedic verses should be chanted. [144] For (destroying) all sorts of creatures born in foods like rice, in liquids, or in fruits or flowers, eating clarified butter is the cleansing. [145] For pulling up, for no purpose, medicinal herbs grown by tillage or growing by themselves in the forest, a man should follow after a cow for one day, living on nothing but milk.

  [146] These vows can dispel all of the guilt that comes from perpetrating violence, knowingly or unknowingly. Now listen to (the vows of restoration for) eating things that should not be eaten.

  [147] If a man drinks date-palm wine unknowingly, he is cleaned only by another transformative ritual (of initiation); (even) if it is done knowingly, the loss of the life’s breath should not be decreed; this is a fixed rule. [148] A man who drinks water that has been kept in a liquor jar or a wine jug should, for five nights, drink milk boiled with a conch-shell flower. [149] If he has touched an intoxicating drink or given it or received it in accordance with the rules, or if he has drunk water left over by a servant, for three days he should drink water (purified) with sacrificial grass. [150] But when a priest who drinks Soma smells the odour of a liquor-drinker, he is cleaned by suppressing his breath three times in water and by eating clarified butter.

  [151] Men of the three twice-born classes who have unknowingly swallowed excrement or urine or anything that has been touched by liquor should undergo the transformative ritual (of initiation) again. [152] But in this second celebration of the transformative ritual of the twice-born, the shaving of the head, the belt, the staff, the begging for food, and the vows should be omitted. [153] A man who has eaten the food of people whose food should not be eaten, or the leftovers of a woman or servant, or who has devoured meat that should not be eaten, should drink barley (-broth) for seven nights. [154] If a twice-born man drinks sour or astringent (fluids), even if they are pure, he is not purified until they have passed through him. [155] If a twice-born man has eaten the urine or excrement of a dung-heap pig, a donkey, a camel, a jackal, a monkey, or a crow, he should carry out the ‘Moon-course’ vow. [156] If he has eaten dried meats, mushrooms growing on the ground, or something of an unknown nature from a slaughter-house, he should carry out the very same vow. [157] For eating carnivorous animals, pigs, camels, cocks, men, crows, and donkeys, the cleansing is the ‘Hot Painful’ vow.