head or a sluggard. For wealth going to such persons, tends to their ruin.
18. 'But if they see one bashful, with thoroughly subdued senses, and skilled in business, to such a one they offer a loan, even unwitnessed. Such a bestowal of money produces bliss.
19. 'The very same line of conduct must be followed, O king, with respect to a debt payable in the world hereafter. But it is not suitable to contract such a loan with thee who art a person of a wicked behaviour because of the evil doctrine thou professest.
20. 'For, at the time when, being precipitated into hell by thy own cruel actions originating in the sin of a wicked lore, thou wilt lie there, sore with pains and paralysed in thy mental powers, who would then call upon thee for a debt of one thousand nishkas?
21. 'There the regions of the sky do not shine in their full feminine beauty[1] by the beams of sun and moon, the destroyers of their veil of darkness. Nor is the firmament there seen with its ornament of crowds of stars, like a lake embellished by unclosed waterlilies.
22. 'The place where the unbelievers dwell in the next world, is encompassed with thick darkness, and an icy wind prevails there, penetrating to the very bones and extremely painful. Who, being wise, would enter that hell in order to obtain money ?
23. 'Some wander for a long time on the bottom of the hell, which is wrapt in dense obscurity and dull with pungent smoke; they are afflicted there, drawing along their rags fastened with leather thongs, and crying with pain as often as they tumble over each other.
24. 'Likewise others are running with wounded feet again and again in all directions in the Hell Gvalatkuküla [= Flaming Chaff], longing for deliver-
- ↑ The disah belong grammatically, and for this reason also mythologically, to the females. Hence they are spoken of as women (diganganâh).
