els and disputes (like Narada). Some, again,
amongst them are actors and dancers (like Bharata). Some amongst them are
competent to achieve all feats, ordinary and extraordinary (like Agastya
drinking up the entire ocean, as if it were a palmful of water). The
Brahmanas, O chief of Bharata's race are of diverse aspects and
behaviour. One should always utter the praises of the Brahmanas who are
conversant with all duties, who are righteous of behaviour, who are
devoted to diverse kinds of act, and who are seen to derive their
sustenance from diverse kinds of occupations.[256] The Brahmanas, O ruler
of men, who are highly blessed, are elder in respect of their origin than
the Pitris, the deities, human beings (belonging to the three other
orders), the Snakes and the Rakshasas. These regenerate persons are
incapable of being vanquished by the deities or the Pitris, or the
Gandharvas or the Rakshasas, or the Asuras or the Pisachas. The Brahmanas
are competent to make him a deity that is not a deity. They can, again,
divest one that is a deity of his status as such. He becomes a king whom
they wish to make a king. He, on the other hand, goes to the wall whom
they do not love or like. I tell thee truly, O king, that those foolish
persons, without doubt, meet with destruction who calumniate the
Brahmanas and utter their dispraise. Skilled in praise and dispraise, and
themselves the origin or cause of other people's fame and ignominy the
Brahmanas, O king, always become angry with those that seek to injure
others. That man whom the Brahmanas praise succeeds in growing in
prosperity. That man who is censured and is cast off by the Brahmanas
soon meets with discomfiture. It is in consequence of the absence of
Brahmanas from among them that the Sakas, the Yavanas, the Kamvojas and
other Kshatriya tribes have become fallen and degraded into the status of
Sudras. The Dravidas, the Kalingas, the Pulandas, the Usinaras, the
Kolisarpas, the Mahishakas and other Kshatriyas, have, in consequence of
the absence of Brahmanas from among their midst, become degraded into
Sudras. Defeat at their hands is preferable to victory over them, O
foremost of victorious persons. One slaying all other living creatures in
the world does not incur a sin so heinous as that of slaying a single
Brahmana. The great Rishis have said that Brahmanicide is a heinous sin.
One should never utter the dispraise or calumny of the Brahmanas. Where
the dispraise of Brahm