Book 5: Hymn 19: The wickedness of robbing or insulting Brāhmans

HYMN XIX

The wickedness of robbing or insulting Brāhmans

1The sons of Vitahavya, the Srinjayas, waxed exceeding strong.
They well-nigh touched the heavens, but they wronged Bhrigu
and were overthrown.
2When men pierced Brihatsāman through, the Brāhman, son of
Angiras,
The ram with teeth in both his jaws, the sheep, devoured their
progeny.
3If men have spat upon, or shot their rheum upon a Brāhman,
they.
Sit in the middle of a stream running with blood, devouring
hair.
4While yet the Brāhman's cow which men are dressing quivers in
her throe:
She mars the kingdom's splendour: there no vigorous hero
springs to life.
5Terrible is her cutting-up: her bitter flesh is cast away,
And it is counted sin among the Fathers if her milk is drunk.
6If any King who deems himself mighty would eat a Brāhman
up,
Rent and disrupted is that realm wherein a Brāhman is oppres-
sed.
7She grows eight-footed, and four-eyed, four-eared, four-jawed,
two-faced, two-tongued,
And shatters down the kingdom of the man who doth the
Brāhman wrong.
8As water swamps a leaky ship so ruin overflows that realm.
Misfortune smites the realm wherein a Brāhman suffers scath
and harm.
9The very trees repel the man, and drive him from their sheltering
shade,
Whoever claims, O Nārada, the treasure that a Brāhman owns. p. a179
10That wealth, King Varuna hath said, is poison by the Gods
prepared.
None hath kept watch to guard his realm who hath devoured a
Brāhman's cow.
11Those nine-and-ninety people whom Earth shook and cast away
from her,
When they had wronged the Brāhman race were ruined incon-
ceivably.
12Oppressor of the Brāhmans! thus the Gods have spoken and
declared,
The step-effacing wisp they bind upon the dead shall be thy
couch.
13Oppressor of the Brāhmans! tears wept by the man who suffers
wrong,
These are the share of water which the Gods have destined to be
thine.
14The share of water which the Gods have destined to be thine, is
that,
Oppressor of the priest! wherewith men lave the corpse and wet
the beard.
15The rain of Mitra-Varuna falls not on him who wrongs the
priest.
To him no counsel brings success: he wins, no friend to do his
will.