should control his passions and propensities.
Well-versed in the scriptures, he should practise those duties that have
been laid down for him, and do all acts in this world guided by the
quality of goodness. Leading even the domestic mode of life, the
Brahmana should be observant of the six acts already spoken of.[901] His
heart full of faith, he should worship the deities in the five well-known
sacrifices. Endued with patience, never heedless, having self-control,
conversant with duties, with a cleansed soul, divested of joy, pride, and
wrath, the Brahmana should never sink in languor. Gifts, study of the
Vedas, sacrifices, penances, modesty, guilelessness, and
self-restraint,--these enhance one's energy and destroy one's sins. One
endued with intelligence should be abstemious in diet and should conquer
one's senses. Indeed, having subdued both lust and wrath, and having
washed away all his sins, he should strive for attaining to Brahma. He
should worship the Fire and Brahmanas, and bow to the deities. He should
avoid all kinds of inauspicious discourse and all acts of unrighteous
injury. This preliminary course of conduct is first laid down for a
Brahmana. Subsequently, when knowledge comes, he should engage himself in
acts, for in acts lies success.[902] The Brahmana who is endued with
intelligence succeeds in crossing the stream of life that is so difficult
to cross and that is so furious and terrible, that has the five senses
for its waters, that has cupidity for its source, and wrath for its mire.
He should never shut his eyes to the fact that Time stands behind him in
a threatening attitude.--Time who is the great stupefier of all things,
and who is armed with very great and irresistible force, issuing from the
great Ordainer himself. Generated by the current of Nature, the universe
is being ceaselessly carried along. The mighty river of Time, overspread
with eddies constituted by the years, having the months for its waves and
the seasons for its current, the fortnights for its floating straw and
grass, and the rise and fall of the eyelids for its froth, the days and
the nights for its water, and desire and lust for its terrible
crocodiles, the Vedas and sacrifices for its rafts, and the righteousness
of creatures for its islands, and Profit and Pleasure for its springs,
truthfulness of speech and Emancipation for its shores, benevolence for
the trees that float along it, and the yugas for the lakes along its
cour