1 The sons of Vitahavya, the Srinjayas, waxed exceeding strong.

They well-nigh touched the heavens, but they wronged Bhrigu and were overthrown.

3 If men have spat upon, or shot their rheum upon a devout scholar, they

Sit in the middle of a stream running with blood, devouring hair.

4 While yet the scholar's cow which men are dressing quivers in her throes,

She mars the kingdom's splendour: there no vigorous hero springs to life.

6 If any king who deems himself mighty would eat up a devout scholar,

Rent and disrupted is that realm wherein a devout man is oppressed.

7 She grows eight-footed, and four-eyed, four-eared, four-jawed, two-faced, two-tongued,

And shatters down the kingdom of the man who doth the scholar wrong.

8 As water swamps a leaky ship so ruin overflows that realm.

Misfortune smites the realm wherein a devout man suffers scath and harm.

9 The very trees repel the man, and drive him from their sheltering shade,

Whoever claims, O Narada, the treasure that a devout man owns.

10 That wealth, God hath said, is poison. None hath kept watch to guard his realm who hath devoured a devout man's cow.

11 Those nine-and-ninety people whom Earth shook and cast away from her,

When they had wronged the righteous were ruined inconceivably.

12 Oppressor of the devout! thus the angels have spoken and declared,

The step-effacing wisp they bind upon the dead shall be thy couch.

13 Oppressor of the devout! tears wept by the man who suffers wrong,

These are the share of water which God hath destined to be thine.

14 The share of water which God hath destined to be thine, is that,

Oppressor of the devout! wherewith men lave the corpse and wet the beard.

15 The rain of God's mercy falls not on him who wrongs the devout.

To him no counsel brings success: he wins no friend to do his will.