that duty
separately. In course of time, every creature is destined to undergo
dissolution. They that are of little understanding meet with great
distress in the regions of the dead, for they become afflicted by hunger
and thirst. Indeed, they have to rot there, burning in pain. There is no
escape for them from such calamity. They have to enter into a thick
darkness. I shall now tell you of those duties by performing which one
may succeed in crossing such calamity. The performance of those duties
costs very little but is fraught with great merit. Indeed, such
performance is productive of great happiness in the other world. The
merits that attach to the gift of water for drink are excellent. In the
next world in especial, those merits are very high. For them that make
gifts of water for drink there is ordained in the other world a large
river full of excellent water. Indeed, the water contained in that river
is inexhaustible and cool and sweet as nectar. He who makes gifts of
water in this world drinks from that stream in the world hereafter when
he goes thither. Listen now to the abundant merits that attach to the
giving of lamps. The man who gives lamps in this world has never to even
behold the thick darkness (of Hell). Soma and Surya and the deity of fire
always give him their light when he repairs to the other world. The
deities ordain that on every side of such a person there should be
blazing light. Verily, when the giver of lights repairs to the world of
the dead, he himself blazes forth in pure effulgence like a second Surya.
Hence, one should give lights while here and water for drink in especial.
Listen now to what the merits are of the person who makes the gift of a
Kapila cow to a Brahmana conversant with the Vedas, especially if the
gift be made in Pushkara. Such a man is regarded as having made a gift of
a hundred kine with a bull, a gift that is productive of eternal merit.
The gift of a single Kapila cow is capable of cleansing whatever sins the
giver may be guilty of even if those sins be as grave. Brahmanicide, for
the gift of a single Kapila cow is regarded as equal in point of merit to
that of a hundred kine. Hence, one should give away a Kapila cow at that
Pushkara which is regarded as the senior (of the two Tirthas known by
that name) on the day of the full moon in the month of Karttika. Men that
succeed in making such a gift have never to encounter distress of any
kind, or sorrow, or thorns giving p