In the original 'Akhyana, history, legend.' The four Vedas are the Rig-veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda, and the Atharvana.

Akhyana is, as it were, tradition superadded to scripture.] [Footnote 56: p.20.l.5._Nala in the dusky twilight, etc._ This is rather an unmanageable passage; but the Latin translation has not rendered its purport correctly.

'Upaspris' can in no case mean 'calcare:' it implies touching, and especially touching or sipping water, as part of the ceremony of purification.

As Menu; "Let each man sprinkle the cavities of his body, and taste water in due form, etc." In the text of this passage, 'upaspris' is used for touching or sprinkling.

In others, it is used in the sense of ablution, bathing.
In the lexicons it is explained 'upasparsa sparsamatre, snanachamanay-orapi, touch in general, ablution, sipping water.' In the Mitakshara, on the subject of personal purification, the direction is, after evacuations, 'Dwijo nityam upaspriset, Let the man of two births always perform the upaspersa,' i.e.says the commentator, 'achamet, let him sip water.' The sense of the passage of the text is, 'that Nala sat down to evening prayer; (as Menu directs, he who repeats it sitting at evening twilight, etc.,) after performing his purifications, and sipping water, but without having washed his feet, such ablution being necessary not because they had been soiled, but because such an act is also part of the rite of purification.