By the observance of these rules, one achieves at once both the objects viz. health and the conquest of the senses.
O, Agnivesha!, We shall now describe the entire code of right conduct.
The Rules of the Good Life
It includes reverence for the gods, cows, brahmanas, preceptor, elders, adepts and for teachers; the tending of the ceremonial fire; the wearing of the holy herbs; bathing twice daily; repeated cleansing of the excretory orifices and the feet; trimming the hair of the head and the beard and the nails thrice a fortnight;
The wearing of clean and untorn apparel; keeping a cheerful disposition and the use of perfumes; being well dressed; keeping the hair well-toiletted; the daily use of oil for the head, ears, nostrils and feet; smoking; taking the initiative in conversation; being pleasant faced; helping the distressed; making burnt-offerings; offering sacrifice, charitableness; saluting at public places; making peace-offerings; hospitality to guests; offering of food balls to the manes; wholesome, measured, palatable and timely speech; self-control; piety; envy of merits and non-envy of the fruits of merits; freedom from anxiety; fearlessness; modesty; sagaciousness; high spirits; dexterity; forgiveness; good-ness, faith; the service of those who are superior to oneself in modesty, intellect, learning, birth and age, as also service of the adepts and preceptors;
Carrying an umbrella and a staff; wearing a turban; the wearing of shoes; looking ahead while walking with heedfulness;
Auspicious behaviour; avoidance of rags, bones, thorns, offal hair, refuse, ashes, fragments of earthen vessels and of places of bathing and sacrifice; relaxing from work before feeling the strain;
Fellowship with all creatures; winning over the angry; consoling the frightened; befriending the destitute; truthfulness; peaceful disposition; bearing with harsh words from others; overcoming impatience; showing a tranquil disposition; and removing the causes of passion and aversion.
The Interdictions on Evil Practices
Speak no untruth; take not away other's goods; covet not another's wife nor another's wealth; delight not in vengeance; commit no sin; sin not even against a sinner; expose not another's shortcomings; pry not into other's secrets; keep not the company of those who are irreligious, disloyal to the king, arrogant, depraved, given to feticide, mean and wicked;
Rise not a bad mount; sit not on a hard and knee high seat; sleep not on an un-spread, uncovered, narrow and uneven bed; roam not on the jagged peaks of mountains; climb not trees; bathe not in rapidly flowing waters; rest not under the shade of a bank; move not in the vicinity of conflagrations;
Laugh not loudly; indulge not in audible release of wind; do not yawn, sneeze or laugh without covering the mouth; do not pick the nose; do not gnash the teeth; do not drum with the nails; do not strike the bones one with another; scratch not the ground; do not idly pick at grass-blades or knead a clod of earth; make not unseemly gestures;
Gaze not at luminaries or undesirable, unclean or inauspicious sights; despise not a dead body; cross not the shadow of a tutelary tree, flag, teacher, or of any worshipful or unwholesome object; do not repair at night to a temple, totem tree, public hall, square, public park, crematorium or scaffold; enter not alone an uninhabited house or a forest;
Take not for wife, friend or servant a person of sinful conduct; contend not with your superiors; consort not with your inferiors; do not curry favour with the crooked; take not the shelter of a non-Arya i.e. untrustworthy man; spread not panic; do not indulge in rash acts or in excess of sleep, waking, bathing, drinking, or eating; sit not long on the haunches with the knees up;
Go not near cruel, fanged or horned animals; avoid headwinds, severe sun, frost and storms; provoke not a quarrel;
Tend not the sacrificial fire inattentively or in a state of pollution; do not warm yourself by keeping a fire underneath; bathe not while fatigued or without first washing the face or in a naked condition; dry not the head with a cloth worn while bathing; do not thrash the tresses with the hands; do not put on the same clothes after a bath;
Step not out of doors without touching precious stones, sacrificial ghee, worshipful and auspicious objects and flowers; do not walk by having holy and auspicious objects to your left and thigs of dissimilar nature to your right;
Partake not of a meal without wearing a jewel on the hand; without having had a bath; or clad in tattered clothes, without saying your prayers, without performing the Homa- rites, without offering to the household gods and the manes, without first feeding the elders, guests and dependants; or unscented; ungarlanded; or without cleansing the hands, feet and face; or with unclean mouth, with the face towards the north, or listlessly, or waited on by an undevoted, unmannerly, unclean or hungry attendant; or in improper vessels; in an improper place; or at an improper time; or amidst a crowd; or without first offering to Agni; or without besprinkling the food with sanctified water or without saying scriptural chants over it; or while reviling anyone; nor eat food of a vile description; served by ill-wishers; nor consisting of stale articles with exception of flesh, greens, dry vegetables and fruits;
Partake not of a meal without leaving remnants except of curds, honey, salt, roasted-grain flour and ghee; eat not curds at night, eat not roasted grain flour by itself or at night or after a meal or in large quantities or at both meals, or interspersed with draughts of water; eat not by tearing with the teeth.
Do not sneeze, eat or sleep in a crooked posture. While pressed by natural urges, do not attend to other work. Do not void spittle, flatus, stools and urine, facing the wind, fire, water, moon, sun, a brahmaNa and an elder.
Do not make water on the road, do not blow the nose amidst a crowd, while eating and while engaged in auspicious acts like Japa, Homa, study and Bali offerings to gods.
Do not contemn or confide in the woman overmuch, nor divulge secrets to her, nor place her in power.
Do not indulge in the sex act with a woman who is in her courses or diseased, unclean, unfit, of undesirable appearance, conduct and nature, unskillful, unresponsive or desirous of another; or do not mate with another's wife, or with a female of another species of animal, or in extra-genital organs, or under a tutelary tree, in a public hall, at cross roads, in a public park, crematorium, or in the house of a brahmana or of a teacher, or of God; or during the twilights or the forbidden days, in an unclean condition or without taking an aphrodisiac, or without having made up your mind beforehand, or without having achieved the necessary erotic urge, or without having partaken of nourishment, or in an overeaten condition, in an awkward position, or hard pressed by the urges of urine and feces or in a state afflicted by fatigue, physical exercise, fasting and exhaustion or in a place that has no privacy.
Do not speak ill of good people and your elders; when you are in an unclean condition, do not practice necromancy nor worship the tutelary tree, temples, and venerable things and persons or practice studies.
Do not conduct your studies during unseasonal lighting, when the quarters are lit up with a lurid glow or while a conflagration is in progress or during an earthquake, festive tide, the time of meteoric showers, eclipses of the sun and the moon, the new moon day. and the two twilights or without being taught by the teacher or by slurring over letters or overstressing them, or raucously or in falsetto tone or without punctuating or too hurriedly or too leisurely, or in a spiritless manner or very loudly or in a very low voice.
Transgress not the majority decision, break not a rule, move not at nights in an improper place; resort not to dinner, study, sex act or sleep at the two twilights; do not contract friendship with the very young, the very old, the greedy, the foolish, the diseased and the impotent; do not develop a taste for drinking, gambling and the company of prostitutes.
Divulge not secrets; do not contemn anyone; be not self conceited; be not inept; be not obstructive; be not carping, speak not ill of the brahmanas, raise not your staff against a cow; defy not the elders, teachers, guilds and kings; do not talk over much; break not off with the relations, companions, helpers in adversity and those who know your secrets.
Be neither timid not overbold; be not ungenerous to your dependents; be not distrustful of your kinsmen; take not your pleasures alone; regard not the maintaining of character, scriptural enjoinments and social observances as a tax on you; do not trust everyone nor distrust every one; be not always ruminative.
Do not let slip the right moment of action; do not undertake anything without deliberation; do not be a slave to your sense-appetites; do not pander to the fickle mind; do not overburden the senses and the understanding; do not over-procrastinate.
Do not give way to anger and joy; do not nurse your sorrows; be not arrogant in success and dejected in defeat; remind yourself constantly of the vanity of things; be decided as to causes and their effects and consequently devoted to benevolent enterprises; do not grow complacent with your achievements; do not lose heart; do not recall calumny.
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