History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c71.s1.673.3

v5.c71.s1.673.3

a man who tells lies, who is a back-biter, whose speech is harsh and who babbles what is irrelevant is reduced to being a bird or a beast (*ibid* III. 135) ; one who is addicted to misappropriating another's wealth and to sexual intercourse with another's wife, who injures another against *śāstric* rules is born as a fixed object; the murderer of a brāhmaṇa becomes born in the body of a beast (deer &c ), a dog, a pig or a camel; the drinker of *surā* is born as an ass, a *pulkasa* (one born from śūdra woman of a *niṣāda*), or a *vena* (one born of an Ambaṣṭha woman from a *vaidehaka*); the thief of gold reaches the state of a worm, an insect (an ant &c ) or a moth and one guilty of incest becomes grass, a bush or a creeper (Yāj. III 207-208). On stealing leafy vegetables one is born as a peacock, on stealing perfumes one is born a *chuchundarī* (musk-rat), the thief of corn, of a vehicle, fruits, water, milk, domestic utensils (like pestle), honey, flesh, a cow, fire, cloth, juice (of sugarcane or the like) and salt is born respectively as a mouse, a camel, a monkey, a *plava* (duck), a crow, a sparrow, bee, vulture, *godhā* (iguana), crane, a man suffering from white leprosy, a dog, *cīrī* (cricket bird).