1858.] Of two Edicts oestowing Land. 235 



2. A conch,* a throne, an umbrella, the best of horses, and the 

 choicest of elephants; these royal insignia, Purandara,t are the 

 requital of giving away land. 



3. Again and again does the fortunate Rama conjure all these 

 and future lords of earth. This bridge of virtue, the granting of 

 land, is common to all princes, and to be cared for, by your majes- 

 ties, in successive ages. J 



ing the ardent penance, must swallow nothing but hot water, hot milk, hot cla- 

 rified butter, and hot steam, each of them for three days successively; performing 

 an ablution, and mortifying all his members." Laws of the Manavas, XL, 215. 

 Yajvavalkya — III., 318 — makes it to consist in drinking hot milk, hot clarified 

 butter, and hot water, each for a day ; with fasting for one night. Paras'ara lays 

 down the quantity of milk, butter, and water. 



Land received in free gift it is wrong to dispose of by sale ; but the selling of it 

 is expiated by a solemn sacrifice — yajna. Again, the man who, though able to 

 vindicate his rights, tamely relinquishes his land, when usurped by another, with- 

 out recourse to litigation — apatala, goes to some hideous hell, there to remain for 

 one and twenty cycles. If he foregoes all endeavour to obtain justice, he should 

 destroy himself; and, by this destruction, he escapes the infernal regions. See a 

 note above, on Akshapatalika, at p. 228. 



The Prdyas'chitta-mayukha is by Nilakantha Bhatta, son of S'ankara ; and the 

 Prdyas'chitta-muktdvali, is by Divakara Bhatta, son of Mahadeva Bhatta, of the 

 gotra of Bharadwaja. The Ddna-chandrikd has been spoken of in a previous note. 



* The bare possession of a dakshindvarta, or conch with its whorls turning to 

 the right, is esteemed, by the Hindus, as securing, without fail, good fortune to 

 its owner. Its employment for religious ends is also thought to be productive of 

 extraordinary results. Some verses on this topic, purporting to be taken from a 

 chapter of the Vardha-purdna, will be found in the S'abda-kalpa-druma, p. 

 5106'. These couplets inculcate, for example, that whoever sprinkles himself, in 

 prescribed form, with water from such a shell, at a river running towards the 

 East, is absolved from all past sin. So sacred is a shell of this description, that 

 one may neither drink out of it, nor strike with it a fish or a swine. 



f Purandara is a name of Indra. 



% The second distich of this couplet has been strangely translated, as follows, 

 in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, January, 

 1852, p. 110: " To preserve what has been granted, a common duty incumbent 

 on all kings, is like a bridge for their safety, over an ocean of sins." Yet this is 

 as close as the English versions of Indian inscriptions are generally. 



Dr. Mill thinks that he finds the reading ^=jn^ for ^^t^T , in a citation of 

 this verse, given on the Shekhavati tablet. Journal of the As. Soc. of Bengal, for 

 1835, pp. 384 and 400. 



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