History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c39.24

v3.c39.24

'Parāśara (I. 46-47) says that the brahmacārin and the ascetic are the masters of food (i. e. their claim is the first); if one eats without giving to these one should perform the penance of cāndrāyaṇa. When a *yati* comes as a guest, one should give water in his hand, then food and then again water. The food becomes as big as Meru (mountain) and the water as the sea. Laghu-Viṣṇu (II. 12-14) highly eulogises a *yogin* as a guest and Dakṣa VII. 42-44 and Vṛddha-Hārīta 8. 89 say that if a *yati* stays as a guest in a householder's house for a single night, the latter's accumulated sins are destroyed and when a *yati* takes food at a man's house it is Viṣṇu himself who is fed.¹⁸⁰³