72 THE SIKH RELIGION
this thou counsellest them to again give thee alms. O Brahman, that is the sort of spell thou teachest those whose houses thou designest to plunder. And when thy victims become poor, thou goest to spy out others. Were thine incantations and spells efficacious, thou wouldst sit as a monarch at home and not go about begging.
The Brahman filled with anger and heaping curses on the princess, said, 'How canst thou know mine affairs? Thou talkest as if thou hadst taken bhang.'
The Princess
Hear, O Brahman, it is thou who knowest not what thou sayest. Thou addressest me in an insolent manner. My senses are not stolen away by bhang. Whither have thine own senses gone without it? Thou callest thyself wise in that thou never takest bhang even by mistake, but when thou goest a-begging, thou insultest, as if under the influence of bhang, him whose house thou visitest. Why beg from door to door for the money thou pretendest to despise ? Thou goest to rajas and takest morsels from them. Thou sayest thou hast abandoned all worldly things and preachest to everybody to do the same. Why stretchest thou forth thy hand to grasp what thou pretendest to renounce? To one man thou preachest to renounce wealth, to another thou sayest that he is under the influence of malignant stars, and therefore he ought to pay thee for deliverance therefrom. It is in the hope of cheating people thou wanderest from door to door. Thou recitest the Veds, the Shastars, and the Simritis, so that a double paisa may fall to thee from some one. Thou praisest him who givest thee anything and revilest him who refuseth. In this way thou hopest to obtain alms from all people. But thou reflectest not that praise and blame are every one's lot while alive, but affect not the dead. Thou canst not confer salvation on those who give thee alms, nor canst thou kill the son or father of him who giveth thee none. I only accept him as a Brahman who deemeth the givers and the refusers, praise and blame as the same. O Brahman, the man from whom
