Chapter LII - Regulations of Prayaschittas (penitential rites)

Brahma said:—I will describe the regulations of Prayaschitta or penances. The principal sinners are those who kill Brahmanas, those who drink spirituous liquors, those who commit thefts and those who violate the beds of their preceptors. And the fifth class of sinners are those who associate with all those people. The minor sins, as described by the celestials, are the slaughtering of kine, etc. One, committing the sin of Brahmanicide, should make a cottage in a forest and live there for twelve years; or he should fast or level the summit of a mountain; or he should himself either enter into fire or water. For the Brahmanas or the kine, one should entirely give up his life. By giving food to the learned one may expatiate the sin of Brahmanicide. By performing a horse-sacrifice or bathing in a sacred shrine, one is freed from the sin. Or he should make over his all to a Brahmana, well read in the Vedas. A twice-born one should bathe thrice a day at the sacred and celebrated confluence of all the streams of the river Sarasvati and fast for three nights. By bathing at the Setuvandha,^[1] at Kapalmochana and Benares, one is freed from the sin of Brahmanicide. The twice-born, who has drunk spirituous liquor, is freed from the sin by drinking, hot as fire, wine, milk, clarified butter and cow’s urine. By being killed by a king with a mace the stealer of gold is freed from the sin. For expiating the sin of Brahmanicide, a twice-born one should, clad in bark, live in the forest. A Brahmana, who possessed by lust, knows his preceptor’s wife, is to embrace the heated figure of a woman made of black iron. Or he may observe the penance of Brahmanicide or perform the Chandrayana^[2] vow. A Brahmana, who keeps company with degraded people, should perform the following penance for cleansing himself of the sin. He should undergo hardships without any sleep for one full year and duly give away his every thing. This will destroy all sins. Due celebration of Chandrayana accompanied with all possible hardships and the visiting of sacred places, such as Gaya, also leads to the destruction of the sin. He, who on an Amavashya day adores Bhava and feeds the Brahmanas, is also freed off of ail sins. If one, bathing in a river in the forenoon and fasting on the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight, offers seven handfuls of water with sessamum seeds to Yama, Dharmaraja, Mrityu, Anantaka, Vaivaswata, Kala and Sarvabhuta-Kshaya (the destroyer of all creatures) he becomes freed from all sins. Having controlled his intellectual and mental faculties he should observe the vow of celibacy, sleep on earth, fast and adore the twice-born. On the sixth day from the full moon he should, with a controlled mind, adore the deity (Vishnu), and on the seventh day, the sun-god. He would thus be freed off of all sins. Having fasted and adored Janarddana on the eleventh and the twelfth days of the light fort-night, one becomes freed from all great sins. Recitation, visiting the sacred shrines and the worship of the deities and Brahmanas during an eclipse also destroys sins. Even if visited by all sorts of sins, a man duly renounces his life at a sacred shrine he becomes freed from them all. If a woman enters into fire with her husband, she reclaims him, even if he be guilty of Brahmanicide, ingratitude or of other vile iniquities. The chaste woman, who is always anxious to serve her husband, is visited by no sin either in this world or in the next. As it is said that the lucky wife of Rama, the son of Dasharatha, Sit a, celebrated in the world, defeated the king of Rakshasas. By bathing in the sacred Phalgu river one reaps the fruit of all the religious rites. Formerly thus did the divine Vishnu speak to me, O ye of controlled actiins.