he supporting pillars
of the universe, and towards whom only agreeable words are spoken by all,
attains to the companionship of the deities. Revilers never come forward
to speak of the merits of a person as they speak of his demerits. That
person whose speech and mind are properly restrained and always devoted
to the Supreme, succeeds in attaining to the fruits of the Vedas,
Penances, and Renunciation. The man of wisdom should never revile (in
return) those that are destitute of merit, by uttering their dispraise
and by insults. He should not extol others (being extolled by them) and
should never injure themselves. The man endued with wisdom and learning
regards revilement as nectar. Reviled, he sleeps without anxiety. The
reviler, on the other hand, meets with destruction. The sacrifices that
one performs in anger, the gifts one makes in anger, the penances one
undergoes in anger, and the offerings and libations one makes to the
sacred fire in anger, are such that their merits are robbed by Yama. The
toil of an angry man becomes entirely fruitless. Ye foremost of
immortals, that person is said to be conversant with righteousness whose
four doors, viz., the organ of pleasure, the stomach, the two arms, and
speech, are well-restrained. That person who, always practising truth and
self-restraint and sincerity and compassion and patience and
renunciation, becomes devoted to the study of the Vedas, does not covet
what belongs to others, and pursues what is good with a singleness of
purpose, succeeds in attaining to heaven. Like a calf sucking all the
four teats of its dam's udders, one should devote oneself to the practice
of all these virtues. I do not know whether anything exists that is more
sacred than Truth. Having roved among both human beings and the deities,
I declare it that Truth is the only means for reaching heaven even as a
ship is the only means for crossing the ocean. A person becomes like
those with whom he dwells, and like those whom he reverences, and like to
what he wishes to be. If a person waits with reverence on him who is good
or him who is otherwise, if he waits with reverence on a sage possessed
of ascetic merit or on a thief, passes under his way and catches his hue
like a piece of cloth catching the dye in which it is steeped. The
deities always converse with those that are possessed of wisdom and
goodness. They, therefore, never entertain the wish for even seeing the
enjoyments in which men take pl