of his dire act of sin.  Casting off his canine form he regains upon the exhaustion of his demerit, the status of humanity.  The Sudra who begets offspring upon a Brahmana woman, leaving off his human form, becomes reborn as a mouse.  The man who becomes guilty of ingratitude O king, has to go to the regions of Yama and there to undergo very painful and severe treatment at the hands of the messengers, provoked to fury, of the grim king of the dead.  Clubs with heavy hammers and mallets, sharp-pointed lances, heated jars, all fraught with severe pain, frightful forests of sword-blades, heated sands, thorny Salmalis—­these and many other instruments of the most painful torture such a man has to endure in the regions of Yama, O Bharata!  The ungrateful person, O chief of Bharata’s race, having endured such terrible treatment in the regions of the grim king of the dead, has to come back to this world and take birth among vile vermin.[513] He has to live as a vile vermin for a period of five and ten years.  O Bharata, He has then to enter the womb and die prematurely before birth.  After this, that person has to enter the womb a hundred times in succession.  Indeed, having, undergone a hundred rebirths, he at last becomes born as a creature in some intermediate order between man and inanimate nature.  Having endured misery for a great many years, he has to take birth as a hairless tortoise.  A person that steals curds has to take birth as a crane.  One becomes a monkey by stealing raw fish.  That man of intelligence who steals honey has to take birth as a gadfly.  By stealing fruits or roots or cakes one becomes an ant.  By stealing Nishpava one becomes a Halagolaka.[514] By stealing Payasa one becomes in one’s next birth a Tittiri bird.  By stealing cakes one becomes a screech-owl.  That man of little intelligence who steals iron has to take birth as a cow.  That man of little understanding who steals white brass has to take birth as a bird of the Harita species.  By stealing a vessel of silver one becomes a pigeon.  By stealing a vessel of gold one has to take birth as a vile vermin.  By stealing a piece of silken cloth, one becomes a Krikara.  By stealing a piece of cloth made of red silk, one becomes a Vartaka.[515] By stealing a piece of muslin one becomes a parrot.  By stealing a piece of cloth that is of fine texture, one becomes a duck after casting off one’s human body.  By stealing a piece of cloth made of cotton, one becomes a crane.  By stealing a piece of cloth made of jute, one becomes a sheep in one’s next life.  By stealing a piece of linen, one has to take birth as a hare.  By stealing different kinds of colouring matter one has to take birth as a peacock.  By stealing a piece of red cloth one has to take birth as a bird of the Jivajivaka species.  By stealing unguents (such as sandal-paste) and perfumes in this world, the man possessed of cupidity, O king, has to take birth as a mole.  Assuming the form of a mole one has to live in it for a period of five and