Chapter CXIV - Injunctions as to the distinction of friends and enemies (in the Nitisara)

Suta said:—No body is no body’s friend. No body is no body’s enemy. Friendship or enmity is bounded with each other by a distinct chain of cause and effect (self-interest). A source of solace in grief, a succour in distress, and a repository of happiness and confidence:—O who has created the two letters, “Mitram” (friend) which are more precious than a mine of gems! By the single utterance of the two letters “Hari” a fettered Self makes a step towards emancipation. A man does not repose so much confidence in his sons, wives and brothers as he implicitly places in his own natural friend. Gamble not and make no pecuniary transactions with a man, nor see his wife in his absence; these three being the essentials of a permanent amity. Never stay in a lonely place with your own daughters, sisters or step-mothers. The fiend of lust takes advantage of solitude and pleads evil counsel to the heart to which the learned have been known to yield. How absurd is the love God in his frolics! A man naturally shuns a woman who loves him and is easily available to him, and covets one whose touch is the forfeit of life. Easier it is to determine the velocity of a horse or of a storm, or even the depth of an unfathomable ocean; but how puerile is the attempt at sounding a heart that loves not. It is the absence of a nook of vantage, or the want of leisure or of a person making love-overtures to her, O Shaunaka, that mainly accounts for the chastity of a woman. It is only rarely, O Shaunaka, when a couple is fondly attached to each other that the wife is true at heart. A son should not think, out of a sense of decorum, what is done by his mother in a passion of love.

A courtesan is a dependant even in respect of her sleep, the sole aim of her life being to regale the hearts of her visitors as long as they can decently bear their wine. She is a sort of perpetual smiling machine, being obliged to hammer out a horse-laugh, even with the weight of a life-long grief, misery and futility lying heavy on her heart. Her person is sold to others for money, while she often meets a violent death. Fire, water, a king, a woman, a fool, or a serpent used or provoked by another, should be regarded as fatal. What wonder is it that a man well-versed in letters will pass as an erudite one? What is surprising in the fact that a king who is learned in the science of politics will rule justly as a virtuous prince? What is there to wonder, if a young and beautiful woman, proud and conscious of her charms, leads a gay and fast life? What is there to surprise, if an indigent person commits a crime? Let not your neighbour know of your weakness, but rather observe his weak points unseen, like a turtle, from your own housetop. Amorous fancies spontaneously occur even in the mind of a girl, who has been incarcerated from her infancy in a moated castle in the nether worlds. Who can pretend to conquer a woman? O Shaunaka, an intelligent brother-worker of yours can do you more harm, if inimical, than a professed enemy who is not in your line. He who can preserve his children in health, please the ladies of his household with money, propitiate the heavens with his penances, and win the good opinion of the public with his urbanity, alone deserves the epithet of a learned man. Those who try to coerce a man to friendship or to win a woman with brute force, and seek knowledge without any effort and prosperity, by working the ruin of others, cannot be called wise. It is foolishness to cut down a tree for its fruits. A tree or a project that yields good fruits, should never be uprooted, O Vipra. How can I believe that a rich man to be an anchorite, and a drunken woman chaste? Trust not the untrustworthy nor confide any secret in your friend, lest he might betray you in a fit of anger. A vast, deep and child-like faith in all, a universal clemency, and a. close and watchful veiling of his own godlike inherent virtues, are the traits which mark a noble soul. The doer of an act does alone feel its consequence. Hence all works should be coolly pondered over before execution. The six things, such as the use of a new wine or Trimulakam (lit.,—horse radish in its three different forms), the partaking of curd in the night, or of dried meat, sleep during the day, and the bed of an elderly woman, should be abjured.

A family is a poison (ruinous) to a poor man. A young wife is a poison (fatal) to an old man. Poison is an ill-acquired knowledge, or a food that cannot be digested. Sweet is charity to a man of bountiful spirit, sweet is social elevation to a man who has risen from the ranks, bounties are sweet to the indigent, and by far the sweetest of them all is his youthful bride to a man of advanced years. Excessive water-drinking, constant use of hard seats or cushions, loss of vital fluid, repression of any natural urging of the body, sleep by the day and vigils in the night, are the six exciting factors of disease. Exposure to the rays of the sun when he stays in the sign of Virgo, sexual excesses, exposure to the smoke of a cremation-ground, the heating of the palms of one’s hands, and the sight of a woman in her menses, tend to shorten life. Dried meat, exposure to the rays of the autumn, sun (in Virgo), curd of more than two days manufacture (Tarunam Dadhi), intercourse with a woman older than one’s own self, and sleep and coitus in the morning are the six depletive agents that tend to reduce strength and vitality. The six things such as, butter manufactured and clarified very same day, grapes, a young wife, a milk potion, tepid water and the shadow of a tree, instantaneously contribute to the formation of strength in the human organism. The water of a well, the shadow of a Vata tree, and the breasts of a youthful maiden, become warm in winter and cold in summer.

The three following, vis., a young wife, an annointment with oil, and a wholesome, toothsome meal instantaneously tend to impart strength to the organism. A fatiguing journey, an act of sexual intercourse and an attack of fever are the three factors which instantaneously diminish the strength of a man. Dry meat should not be taken with milk, nor a man should sit down to a meal in the company of his friends and wives, or with the king of his country, inasmuch as such a conduct might lead to a rupture and misunderstanding. Torn and filthy clothes, voracious eating, rough speaking and sleep at dusk and dawn, are the factors which may bring bad luck to the God Chakrapani, the lord of the wealth goddess. The cutting of weeds with nails, the digging of earth with toes, the bandying and beating of legs against each other, the wearing of filthy garments and dirty clotted hairs, sleeping both at day-break and night-fall, and without the wearing cloth, the beating against one’s back and belly to keep time with music, a voracious appetite and boistrous laughter are the causes which may destroy the opulence even of the god Keshava himself. A cooled and well-washed head, the well-cleansed extremities, an intercourse with a virtuous woman of commendable features except on the nights of the new and the full moon, and sleeping in the night with the usual wearing cloth on, are the acts which may retrieve one’s long-lost fortune. The wearing of any flower, and of a white flower in special, on the head, bars the advent of Bad Luck which has her favourite haunts in the back shadow of a bedstead, or in that of a cushion or lighted lamp, and at the pools where washer women wash their dirty linens. A man with any love of life and health shall avoid exposure to the autumnal sun (lit., staying in the sign of Virgo), or to the smokes and exhalations of a cremation ground, or to the sweepings of a chamber, and coition with woman who is his older in years, and the use of putrid curd technically known as Tarunam Dadhi. The particles of dust brushed off from the sides of a horse, of a cow, of an elephant, or of a chariot are auspicious, while those obtained from the body of an ass, of a sheep, or of a camel are unholy. Paddy-dusts as well as those which stick to the body of one's own child or cow, are holy and sin-expiating in their contact. Dusts which are brushed off from the sides of a goat, or of an ass, as well as those which are raised by a sweeping broom are unholy and unhealthy. The wind wafted by a winnow, the washings of hair and nails, the dribblets from one’s bathing cloth and bath-pitcher, as well as the dusts which float before a sweeping broom, have the power of destroying the pieties of a man acquired even in a previous existence.

You must not walk between two rows of Brahmanas, nor between a fire and a Brahmana, nor between a man and his wife, nor between two bulls or elephants. What wise man will believe in a woman, in a serpent, in a king, in the services done by his own enemy, in the infallible nature of his own knowledge and memory and in the enjoyment of the worldly pleasures, even for once in life? Trust not those who are unworthy of credence. Do not repose unbounded faith even in the trustworthy, lest they might bring about your ruin and overthrow by betraying it.

He who rests confident after having made a reconciliation with his enemy, is sure to a fall one day like a man who peacefully reposes on a tree-top. Be not too mild nor too fierce, but subdue a mild enemy with a mild means and a fierce one with fierce measures. Be not too straight nor too crooked. Crooked trees are left standing while the straight ones are felled by a forester. Trees that are laden with fruits are bent under their burden, a heavy rain-cloud seems to touch the ground with the weight of its charge; but a fool and a dry wood breaks under pressure but knows no bending. Pleasure and pain come and go without asking. Men, like cats, are ever ready to pounce upon happiness. Many a happiness walks before and after a virtuous man, the contrary being the case with the inequitous. A counsel heard by six ears (discussed among three men) is soon divulged; heard by four it is kept secret for a while. He who keeps his own counsel baffles the scrutiny of the god Brahma.

Of what use is the cow which does not conceive and give milk? Of what good is the son who is not wise and virtuous? A single moon illumines the heaven; a single son, virtuous and erudite, sheds lustre on the family. A single tree in blossom purfumes the whole wood land; a single good son gives fragrance to the whole family tree. A single erudite son is the light of the whole family, a family of a hundred illiterate ones is but a grand noodledom, A single moon dispels the darkness of the heaven which hundreds of stars are incapable of doing. A child should be only fondled for the first five years, and ruled or tutored for the next ten. A son of sixteen should be looked upon in the light of a friend and adviser by his father. A son, as soon as he is born, monopolises (robs his father of) the love of his mother. Coming into age he usurps his father’s estate. His doleful look is a death to the parent. A son is the worst enemy a father may possibly have. There are deer-mouthed tigers and tiger-mouthed deer in this world; an implicit confidence in them is the best means of drawing out their nature, on each occasion. The only defect of a pardoning spirit is that its toleration is often mistaken for its weakness or incapability. I do not know what other defects it has. Know all enjoyments in life to be transitory, and do not build your happiness on the foundation of a frail heart’s affection; since whom you love most, may be taken away the next morning. The eldest brother, O Shaunaka, is a father to the younger ones after the demise of their progenitor. Hence he shall look after them all with the same loving and anxious care. The younger brothers should be devoted to their eldest, and he shall look upon them as his own begotten children. Strong is the combination of small and insignificant men. Straws, strung together into a rope, may be strong enough to fetter an elephant. Benevolence with stolen or ill-gotten wealth, leads to hell; the merit is of him to whom the money rightfully belongs. The family of one who robs the gods and the Brahmanas or humiliates a member of that sacred order, is degraded. The sin which is attached to wine-drinking, to theft, to a broken vow, or to a Brahmana-slaughter may be atoned for. There is no expiation for ingratitude. The gods and manes accept not the offerings by a person who is uxorious, or who connives at the whoredom of his own wife or at her illicit amours under his own roof. The dishonest, the wicked, the crooked and the invalid, form the four classes of Chandalas, the fifth being by the accident of birth. An enemy or an evil propensity, however small, should not be neglected. A tiny spark of fire may eventually spread and consume the whole world. Self-control in youth is the only genuine thing; continence is the natural offspring of old age. A public woman, like the right of passage on a public thoroughfare belongs to the whole community; and hence she should not be suffered to be molested or insulted. O thou the foremost of the Brahmanas, the vital principles of the body are dependent on consciousness (lit., mind). The body perishes when the mind is extinct for good. Hence the equilibrium of mind should carefully preserved. A healthy mind is the nursery of healthy thoughts.