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LXVII, 34.
DUTIES OF A HOUSEHOLDER.
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cause a Brâhmana to say the benediction (and give him the jar).
26. (The share) of dogs, crows, and Svapakas let him strew upon the earth.
27. And let him give (a mouthful of food as) alms.
28. By honouring guests he obtains the highest reward.
29. Let him assiduously honour a guest who arrives in the evening (after the Vaisvadeva is over).
30. Let him not suffer a guest to stay at his house unfed.
31. As the Brâhmanas are lords over all other castes, and as a husband is lord over his wives, a guest is the lord of a householder.
32. By honouring a guest he obtains heaven.
33. (One who has arrived as) a guest and is obliged to turn home disappointed in his expectations, takes away from the man, to whose house he has come, his religious merit, and throws his own guilt upon him.
34. A Brâhmana who stays for one night only as a guest, is called atithi (a guest); because he does not stay for a long time, therefore is he termed atithi.
the benediction.' (Nand.) The benediction, according to Devapâla, consists of the Purushasûkta, the Kanikrada (Vagas. Samh. XIII, 48), and other Mantras.
27. According to Nand., who argues from a passage of Baudhayana, the particle ka implies that he should feed Brâhmanas also.
33. This proverb is also found in the Mahâbhârata XII, 6995, in the Hitopadesa I, 56 (64 ed. Johnson), and in the Markandeyapurâna XXIX, 31. See Böhtlingk, Ind. Sprüche, 134.
34. Atithi in this derivation is supposed to mean 'one who does not stay for a whole tithi or lunar day.'
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