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xxi.
SPELLS.
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4. He shall go the way of those who use false weights and measures, who would attack a preacher.

Thereafter the giantesses headed by Kuntî said unto the Lord: We also, O Lord, will afford protection to such preachers; we will procure them safety; we will protect them against assault and poison. Whereupon the Lord said to those giantesses: Very well, sisters, very well; you do well in affording guard, defence, and protection to those preachers, even to such who shall keep no more than the name of this Dharmaparyâya; how much more then to those who shall keep this Dharmaparyâya wholly and entirely, or who, possessing the text of it in a volume, honour it with flowers, incense, fragrant garlands, ointment, powder, cloth, flags, banners, lamps with sesamum oil, lamps with scented oil, lamps with Kampaka-scented oil, with Vârshika-scented oil, with lotus-scented oil, with jasmine-scented oil; who by such-like manifold hundred thousand manners of worshipping shall honour, respect, revere, venerate (this Sûtra), deserve to be guarded by thee and thy suite, Kuntî!

And while this chapter on spells was being expounded[1], sixty-eight thousand living beings received the faculty of acquiescence in the law that has no origin.


  1. The chapter was, properly speaking, not expounded at all; it simply contains a narrative with the speeches of different interlocutors. It may be observed that a poetical version is wanting.