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202
LAWS OF MANU.
VI, 19.
store sufficient for a month, or gather what suffices for six months or for a year.
19. Having collected food according to his ability, he may either eat at night (only), or in the day-time (only), or at every fourth meal-time, or at every eighth.
20. Or he may live according to the rule of the lunar penance (Kândrayana, daily diminishing the quantity of his food) in the bright (half of the month) and increasing it) in the dark (half); or he may eat on the last days of each fortnight, once (a day only), boiled barley-gruel.
21. Or he may constantly subsist on flowers, roots, and fruit alone, which have been ripened by time and have fallen spontaneously, following the rule of the (Institutes) of Vikhanas.
22. Let him either roll about on the ground, or stand during the day on tiptoe, (or) let him alternately stand and sit down; going at the Savaras (at sunrise, at midday, and at sunset) to water in the forest (in order to bathe).
23. In summer let him expose himself to the heat of five fires, during the rainy season live under the open sky, and in winter be dressed in wet clothes, (thus) gradually increasing (the rigour of) his austerities.
vessel for collecting food),' (Nâr.), means 'he may either gather only as much as suffices for one day.' This mode of subsistence is apparently the same as that called Samprakshâlani vritti by Baudhayana, III, 2, II.
21. All the commentators except Når. expressly state that the text refers to a particular set of Satras, ascribed to the Rishi Vikhanas, which contained rules for hermits. Medh. adds that the hermit is to learn other practices also from that work.
23. Five fires,' i.e..four fires and the gun from above.'
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