kinds of neutrals, the two and seventy acts laid down in medical works about the protection, exercise, and improvements of the body, and the practices of particular countries, tribes, and families, were all duty treated in that work.  Virtue, Profit, and Pleasure, and Emancipation, were also described in it.  The diverse means of acquisition, the desire for diverse kinds of wealth.  O giver of profuse presents, the methods of agriculture and other operations that form the chief source of the revenue, and the various means for producing and applying illusions, the methods by which stagnant water is rendered foul, were laid down in it.  All those means, O tiger among kings, by which men might be prevented from deviating from the path of righteousness and honesty, were all described in it.  Having composed that highly beneficial treatise, the divine Lord cheerfully said unto the deities having Indra for their head, those words:  ’For the good of the world and for establishing the triple aggregate (viz., Virtue, Profit, and Pleasure), I have composed this science representing the very cheese of speech.  Assisted by chastisement, this science will protect the world.  Dealing rewards and punishments, this science will operate among men.  And because men are led (to the acquisition of the objects of their existence) by chastisement, or, in other words, chastisement leads or governs everything, therefore will this science be known in the three worlds as Dandaniti (science of chastisement).[172] Containing the essence of all the attributes of the aggregate of six, this science will always be much regarded by all high-souled persons.  Virtue, Profit, Pleasure, and Salvation have all been treated in it.’  After this, the lord of Uma,—­the divine and multiform Siva of large eyes, the Source of all blessings, first studied and mastered it.  In view, however, of the gradual decrease of the period of life of human beings, the divine Siva abridged that science of grave import compiled by Brahman.  The abridgment, called Vaisalakasha, consisting of ten thousand lessons, was then received by Indra devoted to Brahman and endued with great ascetic merit.  The divine Indra also abridged it into a treatise consisting of five thousand lessons and called it Vahudantaka.  Afterwards the puissant Vrihaspati, by his intelligence, further abridged the work into a treatise consisting of three thousand lessons and called it Varhaspatya.  Next, that preceptor of Yoga, of great celebrity, viz., Kavi of immeasurable wisdom, reduced it further into a work of a thousand lessons.  In view of the period of men’s lives and the general decrease (of everything), great Rishis did thus, for benefiting the world, abridge that science.  The gods then, approaching that lord of creatures, viz., Vishnu, said unto him, ’Indicate, O god, that one among mortals who deserves to have superiority over the rest.’  The divine and puissant Narayana, reflecting a little, created, by a fiat of his will,