The Life of Ballālasena 2.13

Vyāsa said:
The Veda, tradition, proper conduct, and what is pleasing to oneself, / desire born of right intention—this is remembered as the root of dharma.

Teaching and studying, sacrificing and officiating at sacrifices, / giving and acceptance of gifts—these are declared the duties of Brahmins.

Revelation and tradition are the two divinely fashioned eyes of Brahmins; / deprived of one, he is one-eyed; deprived of both, he is proclaimed blind.

In the domestic fire a householder should perform domestic rites according to rule, / the performance of the five great sacrifices, and the daily cooking of food.

Teaching is the sacrifice to Brahman; the water-offering is the sacrifice to the ancestors; / the oblation is for the gods; the food-portion is for beings; the sacrifice to humans is honouring guests.

He who does not offer to these five—the deities, guests, servants, / ancestors, and himself—though breathing, he does not live.

A Brahmin or a Kṣatriya staying for a single night is considered a guest; / because his stay is transient, he is therefore called a guest.

Even if a Vaiśya and a Śūdra arrive at the household having the status of guests, / he should feed them along with his servants, showing compassion.

Always devoted to his own wife, avoiding the wives of others, / having offered the oblation, the noble-minded man should eat evening and morning.

A twice-born man afflicted by lack of livelihood may accept gifts from anywhere; / he does not thereby incur sin, for he is equal to fire and the sun.

Protection of beings, charity, sacrifice, and study alone, / the worship of Śiva and likewise the worship of Nārāyaṇa belong to Kṣatriyas.

Constantly prepared to slay bandits, he should display valor in battle; / for a king, there is no higher duty than the suppression of bandits.

He should protect his subjects who are oppressed by irregular soldiers, constables, and thieves, / by perpetrators of violent crimes, and especially by the Kāyasthas.

With honours, gifts, and hospitality he should always settle Vaidikas; / the royal noble should certainly perform acts of dharma with diligence.

He should always support a scholar who knows political science; / he should appoint him in the assembly, always accompanied by the virtuous.

He should retire to rest to the sound of trumpets and awake in the same manner; / he should reflect with his intellect upon the scriptures and all that ought to be done.

Meeting astrologers and physicians, he should give cattle, gold, and land, / as well as settlements and dwellings for śrotriyas.

Whatever dharma belongs to a king in protecting his own realm, / that entire [dharma] he obtains while bringing an enemy realm into subjection.

Devoted to gods and Brahmins, dedicated to ancestral rites, / constantly attached to his own wife, a king is always worthy of one-sixth [of the produce].

The army should be maintained with one part, and gifts given with two parts; / the subjects with one part, and officials with one part;

With one part his personal enjoyment and the maintenance of his household: / thus by six divisions of his revenue the lord of the earth should make expenditure.

Having performed the twilight worship, he enjoys enchanting song and instrumental music, / or at night, a pleasant meal with women amid dances and songs.

A Vaiśya should perform cattle-rearing, agriculture, and trade according to rule; / gifts should be given according to ability, and food to Brahmins.

Free from hypocrisy and delusion, not speaking ill of others, / devoted to his own wife, self-controlled, avoiding another's wife,

Having fed Brahmins with wealth, and the priests at the time of sacrifice, / he should conduct himself without pride in righteous deeds until the fall of his body.

He should constantly perform sacrifice, study, and giving without indolence, / dedicated to rites for the ancestors, and devoted to the worship of Viṣṇu and Śiva.

The Śūdra should diligently perform service to the three classes, / and he should conduct himself toward Brahmins especially like a servant.

He should give without being asked; he may resort to agriculture for his livelihood; / and his blameless livelihood is artisan work and the profession of a bard.

He should worship the gods according to the rule of domestic sacrifice, without indolence; / but service to the twice-born is proclaimed to be his highest duty.

Wearing worn-out clothes, eating the Brahmin's leftover food, / delighting only in his own wife, and avoiding another's wife:

Salt, honey, oil, curd, buttermilk, clarified butter, and milk— / he will not incur guilt if he engages in the sale of all these for Śūdra castes.

By differences of occupation, a livelihood of service is blameless for all; / agriculture has been taught by Manu and others for Brahmins and the rest according to differences in plows.

A plow with sixteen oxen for Brahmins, four less for others, / or with two oxen for the lowest-born, having observed the softness of the ground.

Having torn the earth, cut plants, and killed worms and ants, / plowmen surely purify themselves through sacrifice by worshipping the gods.

Through meritorious Vedic rites, the bodily life-cycle rites from conception onward / are to be performed for the twice-born, purifying both in this world and after death.

The conception rite in season; the rite for quickening a male child before quickening; / the hair-parting rite in the fourth or eighth month; and the birth rite at birth;

The first outing rite in the third month; the naming rite when a hundred days have passed; / the first feeding rite in the sixth month; the tonsure rite in the third year or according to the family;

The ear-piercing rite, the investiture with the vow, the beginning of Vedic study, the ritual rules, / the first shaving rite, the graduation bath, marriage, the taking of the domestic fire,

And the establishment of the three fires—thus sixteen life-cycle rites are remembered; / these nine ending with the ear-piercing rite are the rites for a woman, without mantras.

A Brahmin is entitled to the initiation rite in the eighth year from conception, a Kṣatriya in the eleventh, / and one of the Vaiśya caste in the twelfth.

For him who has reached the time for the vow, this time may be up to twice as long; / fallen from the Vedic vow, he becomes a vrātya, and he is entitled to the vrātyastoma sacrifice.

The Brāhma, Daiva, Ārṣa, Prājāpatya, and Āsura, / the Gāndharva, Rākṣasa, and the Paiśāca, the eighth and lowest.

These four former righteous rites are declared for a Brahmin; / the Gāndharva and the Rākṣasa are commended for a Kṣatriya.

[A gift of a bride] without solicitation, with effort, is proclaimed as the Brāhma; / by giving for the sake of fulfilling a requested purpose, the Prājāpatya is proclaimed.

The Āsura is through taking wealth; the Gāndharva is through mutual agreement; / the Rākṣasa is through abduction in battle; the Paiśāca is through deceit of the maiden.

Three wives are prescribed for a Kṣatriya, but only one wife for a Brahmin; / only one wife is prescribed for a Vaiśya and for a Śūdra.

A Kṣatriya, a Vaiśya, and a Śūdra woman are declared for a Kṣatriya; / only one wife, a Brahmin woman, is prescribed for a Brahmin.

Only a Vaiśya woman is proclaimed as wife for a Vaiśya, and a Śūdra woman for a Śūdra; / a Brahmin must never marry a woman not of his own class.

An Ambaṣṭha who was born from a Brahmin father to a Vaiśya maiden, / having fallen into the state of a Śūdra, should not marry among the Vaiśyas thereafter.

As for the degradation of a nobleman having a Śūdra wife that is spoken of, / that should be known not to be my opinion, since she is elevated by him.

A Brahmin and a Vaiśya fall by marrying a Śūdra maiden; / there is no degradation for a Kṣatriya through taking a Śūdra wife.

Even the marriage of a Brahmin maiden was done by royal sages of old; / for the very powerful it leads to no fault, just as for all-consuming fire.

Manu said: 'The king must not be despised with the thought: "He is a mortal"; / for this is a great deity standing in human form.'

What was practiced by the gods and what was practiced by the sages / is not to be practiced by mortals; one should perform the rite that has been enjoined.

When a woman of the same class has been married, he may marry at will a non-Brahmin woman; / a son produced from her does not fall from the same class.

One born from a Kṣatriya to a Kṣatriya woman is a Kṣatriya, there is no doubt; / and it is just the same with a Vaiśya woman, and indeed even with a Śūdra woman.

As long as a man does not obtain a wife, so long is he half; / a half does not propagate, the whole propagates—such is the Vedic revelation.

In union with a consenting maiden, there is no transgression; / but having adorned and honored her, he himself should marry her.

He should first marry a wife of the same class for the accomplishment of righteousness; / then the king may marry in the natural order of classes according to his desire.

Just as nectar is to be taken from poison, gold from impure matter, / and supreme knowledge from a lowly person, so a jewel of a woman from a bad family.

Women, jewels, and knowledge, righteousness, purity, well-spoken counsel, / and various crafts are to be accepted from everywhere.

Where women are honored, there the gods delight; / but where they are not honored, there all rites are fruitless.

Being illustrious for the sake of procreation, worthy of honor, the lights of the home, / there is no difference whatsoever between women and fortune in households.

The production of offspring, the rearing of what is born, / the daily course of worldly life—woman is visibly the foundation of it.

Offspring, domestic duties, service, highest pleasure, / and heaven for the ancestors and for oneself are indeed dependent on a wife.

Thus ends the thirteenth chapter, named 'The Declaration of the Duties of the Classes and the Rest', in the Vyāsapurāṇa in the Vallālacarita.

Now begins the fourteenth chapter.