(brahma; these gifts, of course, are all to priests).  He that gives respectfully and he that receives respectfully go to heaven; otherwise both go to hell.  Let him, without giving pain to any creature, slowly pile up virtue, as does an ant its house, that he may have a companion in the next world.  For after death neither father, nor mother, nor son, nor wife, nor relations are his companions; his virtue alone remains with him.  The relations leave the dead body, but its virtue follows the spirit:  with his virtue as his companion he will traverse the darkness that is hard to cross; and virtue will lead him to the other world with a luminous form and ethereal body.  A priest that makes low connections is reborn as a slave.  The Father-god permits a priest to accept alms even from a bad man.  For fifteen years the Manes refuse to accept food from one that despises a free gift.  A priest that sins should be punished (that is, mulcted, a priest may not be punished corporally), more than an ordinary man, for the greater the wisdom the greater the offence.  They that commit the Five Great Sins live many years in hells, and afterwards obtain vile births; the slayer of a priest becomes in turn a dog, a pig, an ass, a camel, a cow, a goat, a sheep, etc, etc.  A priest that drinks intoxicating liquor becomes various insects, one after another.  A priest that steals becomes a spider, snake, etc, etc.  By repeating sinful acts men are reborn in painful and base births, and are hurled about in hells; where are sword-leaved trees, etc, and where they are eaten, burned, spitted, and boiled; and they receive births in despicable wombs; rebirth to age, sorrow, and unquenchable death.  But to secure supreme bliss a priest must study the Veda, practice austerity, seek knowledge, subdue the senses, abstain from injury, and serve his Teacher.  Which of these gives highest bliss?  The knowledge of the spirit is the highest and foremost, for it gives immortality.  The performance of Vedic ceremonies is the most productive of happiness here and hereafter.  The Ten Commandments for the twice-born are:  Contentment, patience, self-control, not to steal, purity, control of passions, devotion (or wisdom), knowledge, truthfulness, and freedom from anger.  These are concisely summarized again in the following:  ’Manu declared the condensed rule of duty for (all) the four castes to be:  not to injure a living thing; to speak the truth; not to steal; to be pure; to control the passions’ (VI. 92; X. 63).  The ‘non-injury’ rule does not apply, of course, to sacrifice (ib.  III. 268).  In the epic the commandments are given sometimes as ten, sometimes as eight.

In order to give a completed exposition of Brahmanism we have passed beyond the period of the great heresies, to which we must soon revert.  But, before leaving the present division of the subject, we select from the mass of Brahmanic domestic rites, the details of which offer in general little that is worth noting, two or three ceremonies which possess a more human interest, the marriage rite, the funeral rite, and those strange trials, known among so many other peoples, the ordeals.  We sketch these briefly, wishing merely to illustrate the religious side of each ceremony, as it appears in one or more of its features.