The institutes of Vishnu (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880)

i88

VISH2VU.

LVII, ii.

milk, and vegetables he must not disdain to accept
when they are offered to him.
11. Even if an offender (but not a mortal sinner)
has beckoned and offered alms to him, which had
been brought previously for the purpose, the lord
of creatures has declared that they may be accepted
from him.
12. Neither will the manes eat (his funeral obla-
tions offered to them) for fifteen years, nor will the
fire convey his burnt-offerings (to the gods) if he
rejects such alms.
13. If he wishes to provide for his (parents or
other) Gurus or for (his wife or other) such persons
as he is bound to maintain, or if he wants to worship
the manes or the gods, he may accept gifts from
any one; but he must not satisfy himself with
them.
14. But even in those cases, and though he be
worthy to receive presents, let him not accept them
from a dissolute woman, from a eunuch, from an
outcast, or from an enemy.
15. And if his parents are dead, or if he is living
apart from them in a house of his own, he must
never, while seeking to obtain food for himself,
accept alms from any other persons but those who
are of respectable descent (and belong to a twice-
born caste).
16. One who ploughs the ground for half the
crop (and gives the other half to the king or a
private person, who is the owner), a friend of the
family, a (house-)slave, a herdsman, a barber, and
11. ‘The use of the particle £a implies that Kuja grass &c. is
likewise intended, as Yagnavalkya (I, 214) says.’ (Nand.)
16. The reason of this rule, according to Nand., lies in this, that