13.079
Vasiṣṭha said.
May cows that give ghee and milk, whose origin and birth are from ghee, that have rivers and eddies of ghee, always be present in my house. (13-79-1)
Clarified butter is always in my heart, clarified butter is established in my navel. Clarified butter is in all my limbs, clarified butter abides in my mind. (13-79-2)
Cows are always in front of me, cows are indeed behind as well. Cows are all around me, and I dwell in the midst of cows. (13-79-3)
Thus, after performing the ritual sipping, a man should always recite in the evening and the morning; from whatever sin he commits during the day, he is thereby fully freed. (13-79-4)
Where there are palaces, where are golden streams of treasure and where she is, there Gandharvas and Apsarases go in thousands. (13-79-5)
Where rivers of milk burdened with heaps of butter and thick with curd-moss flow, there they proceed in a thousand streams. (13-79-6)
Whoever gives one hundred thousand cows according to the proper method, after attaining the highest prosperity, is then honored in Goloka. (13-79-7)
A man attains the virtuous worlds of ten ancestors on both sides (of mother and father) after death and also purifies his family. (13-79-8)
One who, according to proper measure, gives a cow, even one made of sesame seeds, and who gives water, does not experience any suffering in the world of Yama. (13-79-9)
The pure and excellent is the foundation of the world; they are the mothers of the gods and are immeasurable. One should take food while facing south, should proceed, and should give to the worthy recipient after carefully considering the proper time. (13-79-10)
Having given a cow with a calf, tawny-colored, with great horns, equipped with a bronze milking vessel and an upper garment, a man enters the difficult-to-enter southern assembly without fear. (13-79-11)
One should always recite: "May the cows, who are mothers, possessing beautiful, manifold, and universal forms, attend upon me." (13-79-12)
There is no gift more meritorious than this, no fruit more auspicious than this; nothing more distinguished exists or can exist among the worlds. (13-79-13)
With their skin, hair, horns, tails, milk, and fat, they together bear the sacrifice; is there anything superior to that? (13-79-14)
I bow my head to that cow by whom all this world, both stationary and moving, is pervaded, the mother of past and future. (13-79-15)
O best of men, I have declared to you only a part of the aggregate of attributes and praises of cows. Indeed, there is no greater gift here than that of cows, nor is there another supreme refuge like them. (13-79-16)
Bhishma said.
The king, having considered this as supreme, thus (in mind), the great-souled one then distributed, in accordance with the eminent sage's instruction, to the Brāhmaṇas; he (who was) self-controlled gave away much wealth of cows and also the realms he had acquired. (13-79-17)
