Anushasanika Parva — Duties as described by Maheshvara and Skanda

Skanda said I shall now describe a duty that is approved of by me. Do ye listen to it with rapt attention. That person who takes a little earth from the horns of a bull of blue color, smears his body therewith for three days, and them performs his ablutions, wins great merits. Hear what those merits are. By such a deed he would wash away every stain and evil, and acquire sovereign sway hereafter.

Every time he is born in this world, he becomes celebrated for his heroism. Hear of another mystery unknown to all.

Taking a vessel of copper and placing therein some cooked food after having mixed it with honey, one should offer it as offerings to the rising Moon on the evening of the day when that luminary is at full.

Do you learn, with faith, what the merits are of the person who acts thus. The Saddhyas, the Rudras, the Adityas, the Vishvedevas, the twin Ashvins, the Maruts and the Vasus, all accept that offering. By such an offering, Soma increases as also ocean that great receptacle of waters. This duty that is declared by me and that is unknown to all, if performed, certainly yields great happiness.

Vishnu said That person who gifted with faith and freed from malice, listens every day with rapt attention to the mysteries about religion and duty that are preserved by the great deities and those mysteries also of the same kind that are preserved by the Rishis has never to succumb to any evil. Such a person becomes also freed from every fear.

That man who, with his senses under thorough restraint, reads these sections describing these auspicious and meritorious duties, together with their mysteries duties, that have been ascribed (by the previous speakers), acquires all the merits of their actual performance.

Sin can never lord over him. Indeed, such a man can never be stained with faults of any sort. Indeed, one acquires profuse merits by reading these mysteries or by reciting them to others or by hearing them recited.

The celestials and the departed Manes eat for ever the Havi and the Kavi offered by such a creature. Both these, on account of the virtues of the offer, become inexhaustible. Even such is the merit of the person who, with rapt attention, recites these mysteries to foremost of Brahmanas, on days of the full moon or the new moon.

Such a person, on account of such a deed, becomes steady in the performance of all duties. He also enjoys personal beauty and prosperity. He succeeds, besides this in becoming the favourite for all time, of the Rishis and the celestials and the departed Manes.

If a person becoines guilty of all sins except those which are classed as grave or heinous, he becomes purged off of them all by only listening to the recitation of these mysteries about religion and duty.

Bhishma said Even these, O king, are the mysteries about religion and duty living in the breasts of the deities. Held in high esteem by all the celestials and promulgated by Vyasa, they have now been declared by me for your behoof. One who is conversant with religion and duty thinks that this excellent knowledge is even superior to the entire. Earth full of riches and wealth.

This knowledge should not be given to one who has no faith or to one who is an atheist, or to one who has fallen away from the duties of his caste, or to one who is shorn of mercy, or to one who is given to the science of empty disputations, or to one who is hostile to his preceptors, or to one who thinks all creatures to be different from oneself.