Verse 18

¹⁸Praised in this way, that revered one, the first god, the way of the good, was well pleased and bright in himself, and laughing he spoke to him. ¹⁹The revered one said: Choose a boon from us as you like. We three are the givers of boons; the sight of us is never wasted, and by it a mortal finds what does not die. ²⁰Brahmins who are good, quiet, unattached, tender toward living beings, devoted to us with nothing else in view, holding no enmity, looking on all alike: ²¹the guardians of the worlds, and their worlds with them, bow to such men, honour them and wait on them; and so do I, and the revered Brahma, and Hari the Lord himself.

²²They do not see the smallest division between me and the Unfallen and the unborn one, nor between their own self and other people. That is why it is you that we come to. ²³Fords are not made of water, nor gods without awareness in them: those make a man clean, but only over a long time, and you by the mere sight of you. ²⁴We bow to the brahmins, who carry our form, the form made of the three Vedas, by settling into the self, by austerity, by recitation and by restraint. ²⁵By hearing of you, or even by seeing you, great sinners and those born at the very bottom would be made clean; how much more by speaking with you, and the rest.