CHAP. 26. Thus has the food, allowed or forbidden to a 'twice-born man, been comprehensively mentioned: 'I will now propound the special rules for eating and for avoiding flesh-meat. 6 27. He should taste meat, which has been hallowed for a sacrifice with appropriated texts, and, once only, when a priest shall desire him, and when he is performing a legal act, or in danger of losing life. 28. For the sustenance of the vital spirit, BRAHMA' created all this animal and vegetable system; 6 and all, that is moveable or immoveable, that spirit ' devours. 1 29. Things fixed are eaten by creatures with lo'comotion; toothless animals, by animals with teeth; 'those without hands, by those to whom hands were given; and the timid, by the bold. 30. He, who eats according to law, commits no sin, even though every day he tastes the flesh of 'such animals, as may lawfully be tasted; since both animals, who may be eaten, and those who eat them, were equally created by BRAHMA'. 31. It is delivered as a rule of the gods, that meat must be swallowed only for the purpose of 'sacrifice; but it is a rule of gigantick demons, that it may be swallowed for any other purpose. 32. No sin is committed by him, who, having ho'noured the deities and the manes, eats flesh-meat, ' which 'which he has bought, or which he has himself ac- CHAP. quired, or which has been given him by another : V. 33. Let no twice-born man, who knows the law, and is not in urgent distress, eat flesh without observing this rule; for he, unable to save himself, will be devoured in the next world by those ani. 'mals, whose flesh he has thus illegally swallowed. 34. The sin of him, who kills deer for gain, is 'not so heinous, with respect to the punishment in another life, as that of him, who eats flesh-meat in vain, or not previously offered as a sacrifice: 6 35. But the man, who, engaged in holy rites according to law, refuses to eat it, shall sink in ' another world, for twenty-one births, to the state of a beast, 6 6 36. Never let a priest eat the flesh of cattle unhallowed with mantras, but let him eat it, observing the primeval rule, when it has been hallowed with those texts of the Véda. 37. Should he have an earnest desire to taste flesh-meat, he may gratify his fancy by forming the image of some beast with clarified butter thickened, or he may form it with dough; but never let him indulge a wish to kill any beast in vain: 38. As many hairs as grow on the beast, so many 'similar deaths shall the slayer of it, for his own 'satisfaction in this world, endure in the next from birth to birth. CHAP. V. 39. By the self-existing in person were beasts created for sacrifice; and the sacrifice was ordained for the increase of this universe: the slaughterer, 'therefore, of beasts for sacrifice is in truth no slaugh 'terer. 40. • Gramineous plants, cattle, timber-trees, amphibious animals, and birds, which have been destroyed for the purpose of sacrifice, attain in the next world exalted births. 41. On a solemn offering to a guest, at a sacri'fice, and in holy rites to the manes or to the gods, 'but on those occasions only, may cattle be slain: this law MENU enacted. 6 42. The twice-born man, who, knowing the mean ing and principles of the Véda, slays cattle on the 'occasions mentioned, conveys both himself and those 'cattle to the summit of beatitude. 43 Let no twice-born man, whose mind is improved by learning, hurt animals without the sanction of scripture, even though in pressing distress, whether he live in his own house, or in that of his preceptor, or in a forest. 44. That hurt, which the scripture ordains, and which is done in this world of moveable and im'moveable creatures, he must consider as no hurt at all; since law shone forth from the light of the scrip ture. 45. He, who injures animals, that are not injurious, 'from 'from a wish to give himself pleasure, adds nothing CHAP. to his own happiness, living or dead; 46. While he, who gives no creature willingly the pain of confinement or death, but seeks the good ' of all sentient beings, enjoys bliss without end. 47. He, who injures no animated creature, shall ' attain without hardship whatever he thinks of, whatever he strives for, whatever he fixes his mind on. 48. Flesh-meat cannot be procured without injury 'to animals, and the slaughter of animals obstructs the path to beatitude; from flesh-meat, therefore, let man abstain : 49. Attentively considering the formation of bodies, and the death or confinement of embodied spirits, let him abstain from eating flesh-meat of any kind. 50. The man, who forsakes not the law, and eats 'not flesh-meat, like a blood-thirsty demon, shall at'tain good will in this world, and shall not be afflicted 'with maladies. 6 51. He, who consents to the death of an animal ; he, who kills it; he, who dissects it; he, who buys he, who sells it; he, who dresses it; he, who serves it up; and he, who makes it his food; these are eight principals in the slaughter.. 6 it ; 6 52. Not a mortal exists more sinful than he, who, ' without an oblation to the manes or the gods, desires to enlarge his own flesh with the flesh of another creature. V. 54. The CHAP. V. 6 53. The man, who performs annually, for a hundred years, an aswamedha, or sacrifice of a horse, and 'the man, who abstains from flesh-meat, enjoy for 'their virtue an equal reward. 6 54. By subsisting on pure fruit and on roots, and by eating such grains as are eaten by hermits, a man reaps not so high a reward, as by carefully abstaining from animal food. 55. "Me he (mán sa) will devour in the next ' world, whose flesh I eat in this life;" thus should a flesh eater speak, and thus the learned pronounce the 'true derivation of the word mánsa, or flesh. 56. In lawfully tasting meat, in drinking fermented liquor, in caressing women, there is no turpitude; for to such enjoyments men are naturally prone: but a virtuous abstinence from them produces a signal compensation. 57. Now will I promulgate the rules of purification ' for the dead, and the modes of purifying inanimate things, as the law prescribes them for the four ⚫ classes in due order. 58. When a child has teethed, and when, after teething, his head has been shorn, and when he has 'been girt with his thread, and when, being full 6 : grown, he dies, all his kindred are impure on the 59. |