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acts disinterestedly, if one is not gluttonous, or carnal-minded, he is freed from sin. Let one (not bathe in pools but) be without wrath, truthful, firm in his vows, seeing his self in all beings." This is, however, a protest little heeded.[50] Pilgrimage is made to pool and plain, to mountain, tree, and river. Even then, as now, of all pilgrimages that to Ganges was most esteemed: "Originally all were holy; in the second age Pushkara[51] was holy; in the third age the Plain of the Kurus was holy; and in this age Ganges is holy" (III. 85. 90).[52] Besides Ganges, the Plain of the Kurus and Pray[=a]ga, the junction of Ganges and Jumna, get the highest laudation. Other rivers, such as the Gomal and Sarasvat[=i], are also extolled, and the list is very long of places which to see or to bathe in releases from sin. "He who bathes in Ganges purifies seven descendants.[53] As long as the bones of a man touch Ganges-water so long that man is magnified in heaven." Again: "No place of pilgrimage is better than Ganges; no god is better than Vishnu; nothing is better than brahma-so said the sire of the gods" (iii. 85. 94-96). The very dust of KuruPlain makes one holy, the sight of it purifies; he that lives south of the Sarasvat[=i], north of the Drishadvat[=i] (i.e., in Kuru-Plain), he lives in the third heaven (iii. 83. 13=203-205[54]). This sort of expiation for sin is implied in a more general way by the remark that there are three kinds of purity, one of speech, one of act, and one of water (iii. 200. 82). But in the epic there is still another means of expiating sin, one that is indicated in the Brahmanic rule that if a woman is an adulteress she destroys half her sin by confessing it (as above), where, however, repentance is rather implied than commanded. But in the epic Pur[=a]na it is distinctly stated as a Cruti, or trite saying, that if one repents he is freed from his sin; na tat kuryl=a]m punar is the formula he must use, 'I will not do so again,' and then he is released from even the sin that he is going to commit a second time, as if by a ceremony—so is the Cruti in the laws, dharmas (i. 207. 51, 52).[55] Confession to the family priest is enjoined, in xii. 268. 14, to escape punishment.
Two other religious practices in the epic are noteworthy. The first is the extension of idolatry in pictures. The amiable 'goddess of the house' is represented, to be sure, as a R[=a]kshas[=i), or demoniac power, whose name is Jar[ra]. But she was created by the Self-existent, and is really very friendly, under certain conditions: "Whoever delineates
