How
can virtue be met with among such a people? Thou shouldst know this. I
must, however, speak again to thee about what another brahmana had said
unto us in the Kuru court, 'There where forests of Pilus stand, and those
five rivers flow, viz., the Satadru, the Vipasa, the Iravati, the
Candrabhaga, and the Vitasa and which have the Sindhu for their sixth,
there in those regions removed from the Himavat, are the countries called
by the name of the Arattas. Those regions are without virtue and
religion. No one should go thither. The gods, the pitris, and the
brahmanas, never accept gifts from those that are fallen, or those that
are begotten by Shudras on the girls of other castes, or the Vahikas who
never perform sacrifices and are exceedingly irreligious.' That learned
brahmana had also said in the Kuru court, 'The Vahikas, without any
feelings of revulsion, eat of wooden vessels having deep stomachs and
earthen plates and vessels that have been licked by dogs and that are
stained with pounded barley and other corn. The Vahikas drink the milk of
sheep and camels and asses and eat curds and other preparations from
those different kinds of milk. Those degraded people number many bastards
among them. There is no food and no milk that they do not take. The
Aratta-Vahikas that are steeped in ignorance, should be avoided.' Thou
shouldst know this, O Shalya. I must, however, again speak to thee about
what another brahmana had said unto me in the Kuru court, 'How can one go
to heaven, having drunk milk in the town called Yugandhara, and resided
in the place called Acyutasthala, and bathed in the spot called
Bhutilaya? There where the five rivers flow just after issuing from the
mountains, there among the Aratta-Vahikas, no respectable person should
dwell even for two days.
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