Note 216 — Chapter VI

[“A priest who has drunk wine shall migrate into a moth or a fly, feeding on ordure. He who steals the gold of a priest, shall pass a thousand times into the bodies of spiders. If a man shall steal honey, he shall be born a great stinging gnat; if oil, an oil-drinking beetle; if salt, a cicada; if a household utensil, an ichneumon fly” (Institutes of Menu, § 353). Thus, apparently with regard to comparison, the Hindú considers insects to be the lowest form of animal life, into which moral criminals are to pass after death, according to their doctrine of metempsychosis.—Editor.]