regarded as impure remnant.[373] Chandramas, after drinking the nectar, pours it once more.  It is not, however, on that account, looked upon as impure.  After the same manner, the milk that these kine yield, being born of nectar, should not be regarded as impure (even though the udders have been touched by the calves with their mouths).  The wind can never become impure.  Fire can never become impure.  Gold can never become impure.  The Ocean can never become impure.  The Nectar, even when drunk by the deities, can never become impure.  Similarly, the milk of a cow, even when her udders are sucked by her calf, can never become impure.  These kine will support all these worlds with the milk they will yield and the ghee that will be manufactured therefrom.  All creatures wish to enjoy the auspicious wealth, identifiable with nectar, that kine possess!—­Having said these words, the lord of creatures, Daksha, made a present unto Mahadeva of a bull with certain kine.  Daksha gratified the heart of Rudra, O Bharata, with that present, Mahadeva, thus gratified, made that bull his vehicle.  And it was after the form of that bull that Mahadeva adopted the device on the standard floating on his battle-car.  For this reason it is that Rudra came to be known as the bull-bannered deity.  It was on that occasion also that the celestials, uniting together, made Mahadeva the lord of animals.  Indeed, the great Rudra became the Master of kine and is named as the bull-signed deity.  Hence, O king, in the matter of giving away kine, the gift is regarded as primarily desirable of Kapila kine which are endued with great energy and possessed of colour unchanged (from white).  Thus are kine, the foremost of all creatures in the world.  It is from them that the means have flowed of the sustenance of all the worlds.  They have Rudra for their master.  They yield Soma (nectar) in the form of milk.  They are auspicious and sacred, and grantors of every wish and givers of life.  A person by making a gift of a cow come to be regarded as making a gift of every article that is desired to be enjoyed by men.  That man who, desiring to attain to prosperity, reads with a pure heart and body these verses on the origin of kine, becomes cleansed of all his sins and attains to prosperity and children and wealth and animals.  He who makes a gift of a cow, O king, always succeeds in acquiring the merits that attach to gifts of Havya and Kavya, to the offer of oblations of water unto the Pitris, to other religious acts whose performance brings peace and happiness, to the gift of vehicles and cloths, and to the cherishing of children and the old.’

“Vaisampayana continued, ’Hearing these words of his grandsire, Pritha’s son, viz., the royal Yudhishthira of Ajamida’s race, uniting with his brothers, began to make gifts of both bulls and kine of different colours unto foremost of Brahmanas.  Verily, for the purpose of subduing regions of felicity in the next, and winning great fame, king Yudhishthira performed many sacrifices and, as sacrificial presents, gave away hundreds of thousands of kine unto such Brahmanas.’”