at their ease, refused to adore the former by rising up and saluting them with respect.  In the presence of sires, sons began to exercise power (in matters that concerned sires alone).  They that were not in receipt of wages accepted service and shamelessly proclaimed the fact, Those amongst them that succeeded in amassing great wealth by doing unrighteous and censurable deeds came to be held in esteem.[860] During the night they began to indulge in loud screams and shrieks.  Their homa fires ceased to send bright and upward flames.  Sons began to lord it over sires, and wives dominated over husbands.  Mothers, fathers, aged seniors, preceptors, guests, and guides ceased to command respect for their superior status.  People ceased to bring up with affection their own offspring but began to desert them.  Without giving away the defined portion in alms and reserving the fixed portion for offering it unto the gods, every one ate what he had.  Indeed, without offering their goods to the deities in sacrifices and without sharing them with the Pitris, the gods, guests, and reverend seniors, they appropriated them to their own use shamelessly.  Their cooks no longer professed any consideration for purity of mind, deed, and word.  They ate what had been left uncovered.  Their corn lay scattered in yards, exposed to devastation by crows and rats.  Their milk remained exposed, and they began to touch clarified butter with hands unwashed after eating.[861] Their spades, domestic knives, baskets, and dishes and cups of white brass, and other utensils began to lie scattered in their houses.  Their housewives abstained from looking after these.  They no longer attained to the repairs of their houses and walls.  Tethering their animals they abstained from giving them food and drink.[862] Disregarding children that only looked on, and without having fed their dependants, the Danavas ate what they had.  They began to prepare payasa and krisara and dishes of meat and cakes and sashkuli (not for gods and guests) but for their own slaves, and commenced to eat the flesh of animals not killed in sacrifices.[863] They used to sleep even after the sun had risen.  They made night of their morns.  Day and night disputes and quarrels waxed in every house of theirs.  They that were not respectable amongst them no longer showed any respect for those that deserve respect while the latter were seated in any place.  Fallen off from their defined duties, they ceased to reverence those that had betaken themselves to the woods for leading a life of peace and divine contemplation.  Intermixture of castes freely commenced among them.  They ceased to attend to purity of person or mind.  Brahmanas learned in the Vedas ceased to command respect among them.  Those again that were ignorant of Richs were not condemned or punished.  Both were treated on a footing of equality, those, that is, that deserved respect and those that deserved no respect.  Their servant girls became wicked in behaviour, and