righteousness,
who worships his parents with reverence, who is endued with truthfulness
of speech and conduct, who attends with obedience upon the Brahmanas, who
is faultless in conduct, who never behaves with anger towards kine and
towards the Brahmanas, who is devoted to the accomplishment of every
duty, who serves his preceptors with reverence, who is devoted for his
whole life to truth and to gifts, and who is always forgiving towards all
transgression against himself, who is mild and self-restrained, who is
full of reverence for the deities, who is hospitable to all guests, who
is endued with compassion,--verily, he, who is adorned with these
attributes,--succeeds in attaining to the eternal and immutable region of
kine. He, who is stained with adultery, sees not such a region; nor he,
who is a slayer of his preceptor; nor he, who speaks falsely or indulges
in idle boasts; nor he, who always disputes with others; nor he who
behaves with hostility towards the Brahmanas. Indeed, that wicked wight,
who is stained with such faults fails to attain even a sight of these
regions of felicity; also he that injures his friends; also he that is
full of guile; also he that is ungrateful; also he that is a cheat; also
he that is crooked in conduct; also he that is a disregarder of religion;
also he that is a slayer of Brahmanas. Such men are incapable of
beholding in even imagination the region of kine that is the abode of
only those who are righteous of deeds. I have told thee everything about
the region of kine in minute detail, O chief of the deities! Hear now, O
thou of a hundred sacrifices, the merit that is theirs who are engaged in
making gifts of kine. He, who make gifts of kine, after purchasing them
with wealth obtained by inheritance or acquired lawfully by him, attains,
as the fruit of such an act to many regions of inexhaustible felicity.
He, who makes a gift of a cow, having acquired it with wealth won at
dice, enjoys felicity, O Sakra, for ten thousand years of celestial
measure. He, who acquires a cow as his share of ancestral wealth is said
to acquire her legitimately. Such a cow may be given away. They that make
gifts of kine so acquired obtain many eternal regions of felicity that is
inexhaustible. That person, who, having acquired a cow in gift makes a
gift of her with a pure heart, succeeds without doubt, O lord of Sachi,
in obtaining eternal regions of beatitude. That person, who, with
restrained senses spea