selves uttering shrill cries! When shall I be happy, in
the company of those intoxicated ladies amid the music of drums and
kettle-drums and conchs sweet as the cries of asses and camels and mules!
When shall I be amongst those ladies eating cakes of flour and meat and
balls of pounded barley mixed with skimmed milk, in the forests, having
many pleasant paths of Sami and Pilu and Karira! When shall I, amid my
own countrymen, mustering in strength on the high-roads, fall upon
passengers, and snatching their robes and attires beat them repeatedly!
What man is there that would willingly dwell, even for a moment amongst
the Vahikas that are so fallen and wicked, and so depraved in their
practises?' Even thus did that Brahmana describe the Vahikas of base
behaviour, a sixth of whose merits and demerits is thine, O Shalya.
Having said this, that pious Brahmana began once more to say what I am
about to repeat respecting the wicked Vahikas. Listen to what I say, 'In
the large and populous town of Sakala, a Rakshasa woman used to sing on
every fourteenth day of the dark fortnight, in accompaniment with a drum,
"When shall I next sing the songs of the Vahikas in this Sakala town,
having gorged myself with beef and drunk the Gauda liquor? When shall I
again, decked in ornaments, and with those maidens and ladies of large
proportions, gorge upon a large number of sheep and large quantities of
pork and beef and the meat of fowls and asses and camels? They who do not
eat sheep live in vain!"' Even thus, O Shalya, the young and old, among
the inhabitants of Sakala, intoxicated with spirits, sing and cry. How
can virtue be met with among such a people? Thou shouldst know this. I
must, however, speak again to thee about what another Brahmana had said
unto us in the Kuru court, 'There where forests of Pilus stand, and those
five rivers flow, viz., the Satadru, the Vipasa, the Iravati, the
Candrabhaga, and the Vitasa and which have the Sindhu for their sixth,
there in those regions removed from the Himavat, are the countries called
by the name of the Arattas. Those regions are without virtue and
religion. No one should go thither. The gods, the pitris, and the
Brahmanas, never accept gifts from those that are fallen, or those that
are begotten by Shudras on the girls of other castes, or the Vahikas who
never perform sacrifices and are exceedingly irreligious.' That learned
Brahmana had also said in the Kuru court, 'The Vahikas, without any