g) kinsmen about taking food and
wearing ornaments, even if their funeral rites remain unperformed when
they die. The surviving kinsmen should make no scruple about such things
on such occasions. A virtuous man should, in the observance of his
duties, discard his very friends and reverend seniors. In fact, until
they perform expiation, they that are virtuous should not even talk with
those sinners. A man that has acted sinfully destroys his sin by acting
virtuously afterwards and by penances. By calling a thief a thief, one
incurs the sin of theft. By calling a person a thief who, however, is not
a thief one incurs a sin just double the sin of theft. The maiden who
suffers her virginity to be deflowered incurs three-fourths of the sin of
Brahmanicide, while the man that deflowers her incurs a sin equal to a
fourth part of that of Brahmanicide. By slandering Brahmanas or by
striking them, one sinks in infamy for a hundred years. By killing a
Brahmana one sinks into hell for a thousand years. No one, therefore,
should speak ill of a Brahmana or slay him. If a person strikes a
Brahmana with a weapon, he will have to live in hell for as many years as
the grains of dust that are soaked by the blood flowing from the wounded.
One guilty of foeticide becomes cleansed if he dies of wounds received in
battle fought for the sake of kine and Brahmanas. He may also be cleansed
by casting his person on a blazing fire.[476] A drinker of alcoholic
liquors becomes cleansed by drinking hot alcohol. His body being burnt
with that hot drink, he is cleansed through death in the other
world.[477] A Brahmana stained by such a sin obtains regions of felicity
by such a course and not by any other. For violating the bed of a
preceptor, the wicked-souled and sinful wretch becomes cleansed by the
death that results from embracing a heated female figure of iron. Or,
cutting off his organ and testicles and bearing them in his hands, he
should go on in a straight course towards the south-west and then cast
off his life. Or, by meeting with death for the sake of benefiting a
Brahmana, he may wash off his sin. Or, after performing a horse-sacrifice
or a cow-sacrifice or an Agnishtoma, he may regain esteem both here and
hereafter. The slayer of a Brahmana should practise the vow of
Brahmacharya for twelve years and devoting himself to penances, wander,
holding in his hands the skull of the slain all the time and proclaiming
his sin unto all. He should eve