Vyasasmriti 4
English (machine translation) 4
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Contents
4.1
Now begins the description of the socio-religious duty of sacred fords, preceded by praise of the householder stage of life: / Thus is the treatise composed by Vyāsa, a compilation of the essence of socio-religious duty, / regarding the merits in the [householder] stage of life and those based on the socio-religious duty of liberation.
4.2
There is no socio-religious duty higher than the householder stage of life—none, again and again! / The fruit of all sacred fords belongs to him who maintains it as declared.
4.3
Devoted to the preceptor, supporting servants, compassionate, ungrudging, / constantly reciting prayers, making fire offerings, truthful, with senses mastered,
4.4
content with his own wife, turning away from the wives of others, / who has no ill repute—the fruit of sacred fords is right in his house.
4.5
He who takes another's wife and another's wealth day after day— / his sin is not destroyed even by bathing at all sacred fords.
4.6
Since the fruit of all sacred fords is found in hospitable homes, / three parts belong to the giver of food; the cook is affected by the enjoyment [of the remainder].
4.7
He who gives shelter, washing of feet, and satiation to brahmins, / and who gives food offerings and alms—sin does not touch him.
4.8
He who gives to brahmins water for the feet, ghee for the feet, a lamp, food, and shelter— / Yama does not approach him.
4.9
For as long as the earth remains wet with the water from a brahmin's feet, / so long do the ancestors drink nectar from lotus vessels.
4.10
The reward that comes from gifting a brown cow on the full-moon day of Kārttika at Jyeṣṭhapuṣkara, / that reward, O best of sages, is found in washing the feet of brahmins.
4.11
The fires are pleased by a welcome, Indra of a hundred sacrifices by [offering] a seat, / the ancestors by the washing of feet, and Prajāpati by food and the like.
4.12
Mother and father are the supreme sacred ford; especially the Gaṅgā and cows; / a sacred ford higher than a brahmin has never been, nor will ever be.
4.13
Subduing his senses, a man should dwell right at home; / for him, Kurukṣetra, Naimiṣa, and the Puṣkaras are right there,
4.14
as well as Gaṅgādvāra, Kedāra, and likewise Sannihitī; / by visiting all these sacred fords [in this way], he is freed from sins.
4.15
O twice-born, of the social classes and stages of life—of the four social classes— / I shall declare the duty of giving, as spoken by Vyāsa:
4.16
What he gives to distinguished men and what he eats day after day, / that alone I consider [true] wealth; for whom does he guard the rest?
4.17
What he gives and what he eats, that alone is the wealth of the wealthy man; / when he is dead, others play with both his wives and his wealth.
4.18
What will embodied beings whose life is spent do with wealth, / wishing to sustain that body which is impermanent?
4.19
The limbs are impermanent; riches are by no means eternal; / death is constantly near; the accumulation of socio-religious duty must be made.
4.20
If it is neither for socio-religious duty, nor for pleasure, nor for fame, / why is that wealth not given away, since it must be abandoned upon departure?
4.21
He whose life sustains brahmins, friends, and relatives— / his life is fruitful; who does not live for his own sake?
4.21.p1
Do not worms live too, eating one another? / He who lives without hindrance to the next world, he [truly] lives.
4.22
Even animals live, merely filling their own bellies; / what is the use of a body well protected and strong for one who lives long [in vain]?
4.23
Why is not even half a mouthful of food given to seekers? / When will wealth according with one's desires ever belong to anyone?
4.24
The non-giver is a renouncer: abandoning his wealth, he departs; / the giver I consider a miser: even when dead, he does not let go of his wealth.
4.25
Destruction of life is certain; one who has achieved his purpose is not immortal, / but he who has met death without achieving his purpose is equal to a donkey.
4.26
What is given to the uninvited and what is given unasked— / the end of an eon will come, but there will be no end to that [gift].
4.27
Just as a cow whose calf has died is milked through thirst and greed, / mutual gifts are worldly dealings, not according to socio-religious duty.
4.28
A gift given in secret and in misfortune, where the recipient is not seen / and there is no return, that gift is endless.
4.29
What one gives to mother and father, to brothers, to father-in-law, / and what one gives to wife and children—that is an endless passage to heaven.
4.30
A gift to one's father is said to be hundredfold, to one's mother thousandfold; / to a sister a hundred-thousandfold, and what is given to a brother of the same womb is imperishable.
4.30.p1
A father should be known as the new-moon day, and a mother as the twilight [at day's end]; / a sister is a solar ingress (saṅkrānti), and a brother of the same womb is a vyatīpāta.
4.31
Day after day, gifts should be given to brahmins, O lord of sages; / whatever worthy recipient arrives, that recipient will carry [the giver] across.
4.32
One recipient consists of the Veda, another recipient consists of ascetic austerity; / the best of recipients is he in whose stomach is no food of a Śūdra.
4.33
Even if a fool is in one's house and a virtuous man is far away, / gifts must be given to the virtuous man; there is no offense in passing over a fool.
4.34
By destruction of property of the gods, by seizure of a brahmin's property, / and by passing over a brahmin, families fall into baseness.
4.35
There is no passing over of a brahmin in the case of a brahmin devoid of the Veda; / for abandoning a blazing fire, one does not offer into ashes.
4.36
Whoever passes over a nearby studying brahmin / in feeding and in giving, destroys his family for three generations.
4.37
As an elephant made of wood, as a deer made of leather, / and as a brahmin who does not study—these three bear only the name.
4.38
As an abandoned village site, as a well without water, / and as a brahmin who does not study—these three bear only the name.
4.39
Whatever is given to brahmins, and whatever is offered into fire— / that wealth is called real wealth; the remaining wealth is useless.
4.40
A gift to an ordinary brahmin is [rewarded] equally; twofold to a nominal brahmin; / a thousandfold to a teacher; but endless to one who has mastered the Veda.
4.41
Born of brahmin seed, devoid of life-cycle rites with mantras, / and living only by his caste—he is a nominal brahmin.
4.42
Invested with rites from conception onward through mantras and Vedic investiture, / [yet] neither teaching nor studying—he is called a nominal brahmin.
4.43
One who maintains the agnihotra, practices austerities, and teaches the Veda / along with the Kalpa and the secret doctrines—him they declare a teacher.
4.44
He who has sacrificed with primary sacrifices, animal sacrifices, and likewise Cāturmāsyas, / and with sacrifices beginning with the Agniṣṭoma, is a sacrificer.
4.45
And he who investigates the Vedas with the six auxiliary limbs in detail, / and the epics and Purāṇas—he is one who has mastered the Veda.
4.46
That by which brahmins live, no other social class [can live] by any means; / having attained such a path, who else would dare abandon it?
4.47
That brahmin is indeed a deity even of the gods, / and visibly so of the world; for brahminical splendor is the cause.
4.48
The mouth of a brahmin is a field free of stones and free of thorns; / one should sow seeds there—that is agriculture yielding all desires.
4.49
One should sow seed in a good field; one should give wealth to a worthy recipient; / what is cast in a good field and upon a worthy recipient does not perish.
4.50
When a brahmin endowed with learning and modesty has come to the house, / all the medicinal herbs rejoice: 'We shall attain the highest state!'
4.51
When given to a brahmin devoid of purity, fallen from vows, and bereft of the Veda, / food weeps: 'Frightened, I have been made into evil!'
4.52
One should feed a brahmin whose mouth is full of the Veda, even if he has already eaten well; / and not a fool, even if he has had no food and fasted for six nights.
4.53
O twice-born ones, the purities that reside in a person's belly— / those are to be employed for him, not the mere bodies of embodied beings.
4.54
In whose body the dwellers of heaven always eat sacrificial offerings, / and the ancestors funeral offerings—what being is higher than him?
4.55
What a brahmin who knows the Veda, engaged in his own duty, and pure, consumes— / for the giver, the fruit is countless and imperishable in birth after birth.
4.56
Some learned men desire vehicles of elephants, horses, and chariots; / I do not desire them, O sages—whose are these rich harvests of grain?
4.57
In the best of the twice-born, the virtuous, plowed with the plow of the Veda, / what seed was formerly dropped—his are these rich harvests of grain.
4.59
A hero is born among a hundred, and a learned man among a thousand; / an orator among a hundred thousand, but a generous giver may or may not be found. / One is not a hero by victory in battle, nor a learned man by study;
4.60
not an orator by skill of speech, nor a giver merely by giving wealth; / he who conquers his senses is a hero; he who practices socio-religious duty is a learned man;
4.61
an orator is one who speaks beneficial and pleasing words; a giver is one who gives with honor.
4.62
If one distributes unequally in a single dining row, whether from affection, fear, or for wealth, / it is seen in the Vedas and sung by the sages: the sages declare that the killing of a brahmin.
4.63
Seed sown in saline soil, cow's milk placed in broken vessels, / an oblation offered into ashes, and a gift given to a fool are impermanent.
4.64
A twice-born whose limbs are nourished by death-impurity and birth-impurity through eating a Śūdra's food— / even I do not know into which womb he will go.
4.65
If anyone should die with a Śūdra's food in his belly, / he surely becomes a boar, or is born into such a family.
4.66
A vulture for twelve births, a boar for seven births, / and a dog for seven births—thus Manu has declared. / Immortality comes from a brahmin's food, and poverty from a Kṣatriya's;
4.67
from a Vaiśya's food comes Śūdra status, while from a Śūdra's food one goes to hell. / And whoever eats a Śūdra's food continuously for one month,
4.68
attains Śūdra status in this life, and having died, is born a dog. / He for whom a Śūdra woman or a Śūdra constantly cooks, or whose mistress of the house is a Śūdra,
4.69
abandoned by ancestors and gods, that twice-born goes to the Raurava hell. / Those contaminated by mingling of vessels, mixed by various contaminations,
4.70
and contaminated by intermixture of castes—such men go to hell. / One who causes division in the dining row, one who cooks in vain, one who constantly slanders brahmins,
4.71
an astrologer, and a seller of the Veda—these five are slayers of brahmins.
4.72
This opinion of Vyāsa should be studied constantly with effort; / for one who observes the conduct stated here, there is never any fall.
4.72.p1
Thus ends the fourth chapter, titled 'The Description of the Praise of the Householder Stage of Life and Other Topics', in the treatise on socio-religious duty composed by holy Vedavyāsa.
4.72.p2
And thus ends this Vyāsasmṛti.
Linked texts (1)
- Vyāsasmṛti — Vyāsa, Sanskrit