2. To Bráhmins he assigned the duties of reading the Veda, of teaching it, of sacrificing, of assisting others to sacrifice, of giving alms, if they be rich, and, if indigent, of receiving gifts.
3. To defend the people, to give alms, to sacrifice, to read the Veda, to shun the allurements of sensual gratification, are, in a few words, the duties of a Cshatriya.
4. To keep herds of cattle, to bestow largesses, to sacrifice, to read the scripture, to carry on trade, to lend at interest, and to cultivate land, are prescribed or permitted to a Vaisya.
5. One principal duty the Supreme Ruler assigns to a Súdra; namely, to serve the before-mentioned classes, without depreciating their worth.
6. Man is declared purer above the navel; but the Self-Creating Power declared the purest part of him to be his mouth.
7. Since the Bráhmin sprang from the most excellent part, since he was the first born, and since he possesses the Veda, he is by right the chief of this whole creation.
8. Him, the Being, who exists of himself, produced in the beginning, from his own mouth, that having performed holy rites, he might present clarified butter to the gods, and cakes of rice to the progenitors of mankind, for the preservation of this world.
9. What created being then can surpass Him, with whose[161] mouth the gods of the firmament continually feast on clarified butter, and the manes of ancestors, on hallowed cakes?
10. Of created things, the most excellent are those which are animated; of the animated, those which subsist by intelligence; of the intelligent, mankind; and of men, the sacerdotal class.
11. Of priests those eminent in learning; of the learned, those who know their duty; of those who know it, such as perform it virtuously; and of the virtuous, those who seek beatitude from a perfect acquaintance with scriptural doctrine.