I shall now mention other
acts that men should not do, viz., acts that are interdicted by both the
world and the Vedas. Listen to me with concentrated attention. The
rejection of one's own creed, the practice of other people's creed,
assisting at the sacrifice or the religious rites of one that is not
worthy of such assistance, eating of food that is forbidden, deserting
one that craves protection, neglect in maintaining servants and
dependants, selling salt and treacle (and similar other substances),
killing of birds and animals, refusal, though competent, to procreate
upon a soliciting woman, omission to present the daily gifts (of handfuls
of grass to kine and the like), omission to present the dakshina,
humiliating a Brahmana,--these all have been pronounced by persons
conversant with duty to be acts that no one should do. The son that
quarrels with the father, the person that violates the bed of his
preceptor, one that neglects to produce offspring in one's wedded wife,
are all sinful, O tiger among men! I have now declared to thee, in brief
as also in detail, those acts and omissions by which a man becomes liable
to perform expiation. Listen now to the circumstances under which men, by
even committing these acts, do not become stained with sin. If a Brahmana
well acquainted with the Vedas takes up arms and rushes against thee in
battle for killing thee, thou mayst proceed against him for taking his
life. By such an act the slayer does not become guilty of the slaughter
of a Brahmana.
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