The Shintoist prays for forgiveness of errors which he has committed unknowingly.[79] According to the Vedic hymns, whoever with or without intention offends against the eternal ordinances of Varuna, the All-knowing and Sinless, arouses his anger, and is bound with the bonds of the god--with calamity, sickness, and death.[80] Forgiveness is besought of Varuna for sins that have been committed in unconsciousness;[81] even sleep occasions sin.[82] The singer Vasishtha is filled with pious grief, because daily against his will and without knowledge he offends the god and in ignorance violates his decree.[83] "All sages," say the Laws of Manu, "prescribe a penance for a sin unintentionally committed"; such a sin "is expiated by the recitation of Vedic texts, but that which men in their folly commit intentionally, by various special penances."[84] Among the present Hindus, "even in cases of accidental drinking of spirits through ignorance on the part of any of the three twice-born classes, nothing short of a repetition of the initial sacramentary rites, effecting a complete regeneration, is held sufficient to purge the sin."[85] [Footnote 79: Selenka, _Sonnige Welten_, p. 210 _sq._] [Footnote 80: _Cf._ Kaegi, _Rigveda_, p. 66 _sq._; Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, p. 289.] [Footnote 81: _Rig-Veda_, v. 85. 8.] [Footnote 82: _Ibid._ vii. 86. 6; x. 164. 3.] [Footnote 83: _Ibid._ vii. 88. 6. _Cf._ Kaegi, _op. cit._ p. 68.] [Footnote 84: _Laws of Manu_, xi. 45 _sq._ _Cf._ _Vasishtha_, 20.] [Footnote 85: Rájendralála Mitra, _Indo-Aryans_, i. 393.] In the Greek literature there are several instances of guilt being attached to the accidental transgression of some sacred law, the transgressor being perfectly unaware of the nature of his deed. Oedipus is the most famous example of this. Actaeon is punished for having seen Diana. Pausanias, the Spartan king, made sacrifice to Zeus Phyxius, to atone for the death of the maiden whom he had slain by misfortune.[86] [Footnote 86: Farnell, _op. cit._ i. 72.] The Babylonian psalmist, assuming that one of the {229} gods is angry with him because he is suffering pain, exclaims:--"The sin which I committed I know not. The transgression I committed I know not. The affliction which was my food--I know it not. The evil which trampled me down--I know it not. The lord in the wrath of his heart has regarded me; the god in the fierceness of his heart has punished me."[87] In another psalm it is said:--"He knows not his sin against the god, he knows not his transgression against the god and the goddess. Yet the god has smitten, the goddess has departed from him."[88] [Footnote 87: Zimmern, _Babylonische Busspsalmen_, p. 63.] [Footnote 88: Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_, p. 505. _Cf._ Mürdter-Delitzsch, _Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens_, p. 38.]