________________
XXI.
SPELLS.
375
4. He shall go the way of those who use false weights and measures, who would attack a preacher.
Thereafter the giantesses headed by Kuntf said unto the Lord: We also, O Lord, will afford protection to such preachers; we will procure them safety; we will protect them against assault and poison. Whereupon the Lord said to those giantesses : Very well, sisters, very well; you do well in affording guard, defence, and protection to those preachers, even to such who shall keep no more than the name of this Dharmaparyâya; how much more then to those who shall keep this Dharmaparyâya wholly and entirely, or who, possessing the text of it in a volume, honour it with flowers, incense, fragrant garlands, ointment, powder, cloth, flags, banners, lamps with sesamum oil, lamps with scented oil, lamps with Kampaka-scented oil, with Vârshikascented oil, with lotus-scented oil, with jasminescented oil; who by such-like manifold hundred thousand manners of worshipping shall honour, respect, revere, venerate (this Sûtra), deserve to be guarded by thee and thy suite, Kunti !
And while this chapter on spells was being expounded?, sixty-eight thousand living beings received the faculty of acquiescence in the law that has no origin.
The chapter was, properly speaking, not expounded at all; it simply contains a narrative with the speeches of different interlocutors. It may be observed that a poetical version is wanting.
Digitized by Google