be insulted, for Brahmanas are like fires.  As the fire that blazeth up in the place set apart for the cremation of the dead is never regarded impure on that account, so the Brahmana, be he learned or ignorant, is always pure.  He is great and a very god!  Cities that are adorned with walls and gates and palaces one after another, lose their beauty if they are bereft of Brahmanas.  That, indeed, O king, is a city where Brahmanas accomplished in the Vedas, duly observing the duties of their order and possessed of learning and ascetic merit, reside.  O son of Pritha, that spot, be it a wood or pasture land, where learned Brahmanas reside, hath been called a city.  And that place, O king, becometh a tirtha also.  By approaching a king that offereth protection, as also a Brahmana possessed of ascetic merit, and by offering worship unto both, a man may purge off his sins immediately.  The learned have said that ablutions in the sacred tirthas, recitation of the names of holy ones, and converse with the good and virtuous, are all acts worthy of applause.  They that are virtuous and honest always regard themselves as sanctified by the holy companionship of persons like themselves and by the water of pure and sacred converse.  The carrying of three staffs, the vow of silence, matted hair on head, the shaving of the crown, covering one’s person with barks and deerskins, the practice of vows, ablutions, the worship of fire, abode in the woods, emaciating the body, all these are useless if the heart be not pure.  The indulgence of the six senses is easy, if purity be not sought in the object of enjoyment.  Abstinence, however, which of itself is difficult, is scarcely easy without purity of the objects of enjoyment.  O king of kings, among the six senses, the mind alone that is easily moved is the most dangerous!  Those high-souled persons that do not commit sins in word, deed, heart and soul, are said to undergo ascetic austerities, and not they that suffer their bodies to be wasted by fasts and penances.  He that hath no feeling of kindness for relatives cannot be free from sin even if his body be pure.  That hard-heartedness of his is the enemy of his asceticism.  Asceticism, again, is not mere abstinence from the pleasures of the world.  He that is always pure and decked with virtue, he that practises kindness all his life, is a Muni even though he may lead a domestic life.  Such a man is purged of all his sins.  Fasts and other penances cannot destroy sins, however much they may weaken and dry up the body that is made of flesh and blood.  The man whose heart is without holiness, suffers torture only by undergoing penances in ignorance of their meaning.  He is never freed from sins of such acts.  The fire he worshippeth doth not consume his sins.  It is in consequence of holiness and virtue alone that men attain to regions of blessedness, and fasts and vows become efficacious.  Subsistence on fruits and roots, the vow of silence, living upon air, the shaving of the crown, abandonment of a fixed