blazing fire.  If the elder brother be fallen or has renounced the world, the younger brother does not incur sin by marrying.  Solicited by a woman, connection with her is not destructive of virtue.  One should not slay or cause to be slain an animal except in a sacrifice.  Animals have become sacred (fit for sacrifice) through the kindness manifested towards them by the Creator himself in the ordinance laid down by him.  By making a gift in ignorance to an undeserving Brahmana one does not incur sin.  The omission (through ignorance) to behave with liberality towards a deserving person does not lead to sin.  By casting off an adulterous wife one does not incur sin.  By such treatment the woman herself may be purged while the husband may avoid sin.  One who knows the true use of the Soma juice, does not incur sin by selling it.[114] By dismissing a servant who is incompetent to render service one is not touched by sin.  I have now said unto thee those acts by doing which one does not incur sin.  I shall now speak to thee of expiation in detail.’”

SECTION XXXVI

“Vyasa said, ’By penances, religious rites, and gifts, O Bharata, a man may wash off his sins if he does not commit them again.  By subsisting upon only one meal a day, and that procured by mendicancy, by doing all his acts himself (without relying on the aid of a servant), by making his round of mendicancy with a human skull in one hand and a khattanga in another, by becoming a Brahmacharin and always ready for exertion, by casting off all malice, by sleeping on the bare ground, by publishing his offence to the world, by doing all this for full twelve years, a person can cleanse himself from the sin of having slain a Brahmana.  By perishing upon the weapon of a person living by the use of arms, of one’s own will and upon the advice of persons learned in the scriptures, or by throwing one’s self down, for three times, with head downwards, upon a blazing fire, or by walking a hundred Yojanas all the while reciting the Vedas, or by giving away one’s whole property to a Brahmana conversant with the Vedas, or at least so much as would secure to him a competence for life, or a house properly furnished, and by protecting kine and Brahmanas, one may be cleansed of the sin of having slain a Brahmana.  By living upon the scantiest meal every day for a space of six years, a person may be cleansed of that sin.[115] By observing a harder vow with regard to food one may be cleansed in three years.[116] By living upon one meal a month, one may be cleansed in course of only a year.  By observing, again, an absolute fast, one may be cleansed within a very short time.  There is no doubt again that:  one is cleansed by a Horse-sacrifice.  Men that have been guilty of having slain a Brahmana and that have succeeded in taking the final bath at the completion of the Horse-sacrifice, become cleansed of all their sins.  This is an injunction of great authority in the Srutis.