Shloka 119
Puṣkara-Śapatha Itihāsa (Agastya–Indra Dispute at the Tīrthas) | पुष्कर-शपथ-आख्यानम्
उपाध्यायमध: कृत्वा ऋचो<ध्येतु अजूंषि च । जुहोतु च स कक्षाग्नौ बिसस्तैन्यं करोति यः:
upādhyāyam adhaḥ kṛtvā ṛco 'dhyetuṃ yajūṃṣi ca | juhotu ca sa kakṣāgnau bisastainyaṃ karoti yaḥ ||
Bharadvāja dijo: «Quien comete el robo de bisas (fibras del tallo de loto) incurre en el mismo pecado que aquel que, tras hacer sentar a su maestro en un lugar inferior, estudia el Ṛgveda y el Yajurveda con irreverencia y ofrece oblaciones en un simple fuego de hierba. La enseñanza es que incluso un hurto que parece menor constituye una grave ruptura del dharma, y que el saber sagrado y el rito, cuando se realizan con desprecio al maestro y a la forma debida, se vuelven actos de culpa y no de mérito.»
भरद्वाज उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse equates the theft of something seemingly small (lotus-stalk fibres) with grave religious misconduct: disrespecting one’s teacher while undertaking Vedic study and performing a degraded form of ritual. It teaches that dharma depends on intention, reverence, and right conduct—not merely on the external act.
Bharadvāja is enumerating and grading moral faults. He states that a person who steals bisas bears a sin comparable to someone who humiliates the upādhyāya, studies the Vedas in that disrespectful posture, and offers oblations into an improper ‘grass-fire,’ thereby turning sacred acts into wrongdoing.