Then they said, "Sin is not the mere uprising of a thought. If you feel remorse for so small a thing as this, what transgression could you ever commit? Not by such a small matter is virtue broken; give us this righteousness!" And she likewise told it to them, and they wrote it upon a golden plate. But she said, "However, my sons, my virtue is not perfect. But the viceroy observes these rules well; go ye and receive them from him."

Then again they repaired to the viceroy, and as before asked him for the Kuru righteousness.--Now the viceroy used to go and pay his devoirs to the king at evening; and when they came to the palace courtyard, in his car, if he wished to eat with the king, and spend the night there, he would throw his reins and goad upon the yoke; and that was a sign for the people to depart; and next morning early they would come again, and stand awaiting the viceroy's departure. And the charioteer [375] would attend the car, and come again with it early in the morning, and wait by the king's door. But if the viceroy would depart ht the same time, he left the reins and goad there in the chariot, and went in to wait upon the king. Then the people, taking it for a sign that he would presently depart, stood waiting there at the palace door. One day he did thus, and went in to wait upon the king. But as he was within, it began to rain; and the king, remarking this, would not let him go away, so he took his meal, and slept there. But a great crowd of people stood expecting him to come out, and there they stayed all night in the wet. Next day the viceroy came out, and seeing the crowd standing there drenched, thought he--"I, who keep the Kuru righteousness, have put all this crowd to discomfort! Surely here is a flaw in my virtue!" and he was seized with remorse. So he said to the messengers: "Now doubt has come upon me if indeed I do keep this righteousness; therefore r cannot give it to you;" and he told them the matter.

"But," said they, "you never had the wish to plague those people. What is not intended is not counted to one's score. If you feel remorse for so small a thing, in what would you ever transgress?" So they received from him too the knowledge of this righteousness, and wrote it on their golden plate. "However," said he, "this righteousness is not perfected in me. But my chaplain keeps it well; go, ask him for it." Then again they went on to the chaplain.

Now the chaplain one day had been going to wait upon the king. On the road he saw a chariot; sent to the king by another king, coloured like the young sun. "Whose chariot?" he asked. "Sent for the king," they said. Then he thought, "I am an old man; if the king were to give me that chariot, how time it would he to ride about in it!" When he