(1) If a devotee happens to pray to Vishnu with his mouth unwashed, all the punya that he may have acquired earlier is lost. To atone for this sin, the devotee has to sleep without a cover directly under the sky for seven nights in succession in the bitter winter cold.

(2) Fasting is the penance for worshipping Vishnu in an unclean state, for example, after touching a dead body or after returning from the cremation ground.

(3) If one touches Vishnu’s image without following the prescribed rituals, one causes displeasure to Vishnu. The penance is to face the east, rub one’s hands and feet with mud and clean them, and then meditate.

(4) Normally it is a sin to accept rice offered by a king. This is because a king has to perform unacceptable acts by the mere fact of being a ruler. Rice can be accepted from a king only if the king constructs a temple, installs a consecrated image of Vishnu in the temple, prepares food in an appropriate vessel offers the cooked food first to Vishnu and then distributes the sanctified food amongst people. If one partakes of food that has not been thus consecrated, the atonement involves fasting for six nights in succession. One can alternatively live on a concoction of water, milk and clarified butter for three days and fast for one day.