Chapter CXIII - Injunctions as to the appointments of the honest and the erudite in the king’s service etc.

Suta said:—Try to secure the services of the qualified and reject the incapable from the list inasmuch as all virtues grace the mind of the erudite, and an illiterate fool is, at best, but the embodiment of all evil propensities. Sit in the assembly of the honest; combine with those that are good and virtuous; nay seek out a noble enemy where enmity can be helped and have nothing to do with the wicked and the unrighteous. Even in bondage thou shalt live with the virtuous, the erudite and the truthful; but not for a kingdom thou shalt stay with the wicked and the malicious. Good can come only out of a work that has been rightly carried through; and therefore thou shalt leave no work unfinished. A king shall tap, the resources of his dominion just as a bee culls honey from a flower without killing it. He shall milch a cow or the earth, leaving some sustenance for her offsprings. A bee culls honey from flower to flower without fully draining any particular one, and a king shall collect his revenues, bee-fashion, from his subjects without creating hardship on any. Day by day the royal granary and treasury should be replenished and filled as an ant-hill, a bee-hive, and the phases of the moon in a light fortnight are increased. A little ink (used every day in writing) writes a good volume in the long run. By little fresh accretions, each day, an ant-hill reaches to a pretty good height. A little study, a little virtue, a little act of charity practised, each day, may serve to make the life unbarren at its close.

Desires assail the worldly-disposed even amidst the solitude of a wilderness and the subjugation of his senses by a man even amidst the tumults of the world and domesticity constitues true penitence and meditation. The house of a man who has abjured evil and killed all desires, is the true hermitage. Piety is preserved by truthfulness; knowledge, by constant cultivation; courtesy, by humility; and a family good name, by the character of its members. Better it is to dwell in the howling Vindhya forest, better it is to die of starvation, preferable it is to live in a snake-infested chamber, infinitely preferable is a leap in a well or in a whirlpool where sharks and other dreadful water-animals abound, than to say “help me” to one’s friends and relations. Enjoyment does not consume the opulence of a man, it is the end of his good luck that leads to his ruin. The effects of his deeds in a prior birth has a hand in hewing his destiny in this as in other things.

Knowledge is the ornament of the Brahmanas; the king, is that of the Earth. The moon is the ornament of the heaven; and a good character is a decoration and distinction to all and everywhere.

The valorous Bhimasena and his brothers Arjuna, etc., were all heroes of royal descent. They were truthful and resplendent like the mid-day sun and enjoyed the direct tutelary protection of Keshava. Even they, under the influence of a malign fate, were bound to live in penury and beg their bread from door to door. What can a man achieve in life without destiny? It is fate that makes us fulfill our own destiny on earth according to the effects of our own deeds in a prior life. Obeisance to Karma that has fixed Brahma in this globe of the universe (lit.,—region of Beconing) which is perpetually revolving like a potter’s wheel—that has consigned the divine Vishnu to the pangs of ten successive incarnations on earth—that has sent out the immortal Rudra in the guise of a common mendicant with an alms-bowl of human cranium in his hand—and that has driven the Sun-God as a blazing, burning itinerant across the plains of heaven. The good king Vali made a gift of the whole earth amidst the best of the Brahmanas to the god Murari, who stood as a supplicant for it at his door; and in consequence he was incarcerated for good in the gloom of the nether worlds—Obeisance to Fate, the creator of all anomalies. Which way will trend the thoughts of a being whom the supreme god has begotten on Lakshmi, the goddess of opulence? What wonder is there that good fortune will preside at his nativity. We enjoy or suffer the effects of our own good or bad deeds of our past birth. A man is the creator of his own fate, and even in his fœtal life he is afflected by the dynamics of the works of his prior existence. Whether confined in a mountain fastness or lulling on the bosom of a sea, whether secure in his mother’s lap or held high above her head, a man cannot fly from the effects of his own prior deeds. Ravana had his fortress on the summits of the mount Trikruta, moated by the deep sea; and innumerable hosts of valiant Rakshasas were ever ready to lay their lives for him. The wise sage Ushana (Shukracharyya) himself tutored him well in ethics, politics and social economy. Time has killed even that mighty Ravana. Whatever is to befall a man on any particular age or time, will surely overtake him then and on that date. Scale the heavens, or plunge into the nether regions, or enfilade the quarters of the skies, a thing, which you have once given away, can never be yours. Knowledge acquired by a man in his prior birth, wealth given away in charity in his prioi existence, and works done by him in a previous incarnation, go ahead of his soul in its sojourn. A person’s Karma is the principal factor in determining his happiness or unhappiness in life, inasmuch as Janaki, though joined in wedlock under the auspices of blissful asterisms by the holy Vashishta himself, had nothing but misery for her portion in life. [A good physiognomy does not necessarily ensure a happy life on earth.] Rama was round-thighed, Lakshmana Was fleetcoursing as the wind, and Sita had a crown of fine, thick-set hair, yet they were all unhappy. A son cannot relieve the misery of his father’s spirit by performing proper obsequies, nor a fond father, with all his anxious care for his good and due performance of his paternal duties, can lead him in the path of happiness. This human body entombs a Self which is nothing if not emphatically a worker. It is the works of this Self in a prior existence which determine the nature of its organism in the next, as well as the character of the diseases, whether physical or mental which it is to fall a prey to. Shafts discharged even by strong-armed archers fall to the ground and wise men even with their knowledge and forethought are sometimes vanquished. Hence all projects should be carefully judged and deliberated in the light of the Shastras. A man reaps that at that age, whether infancy, youth or old age, at which he had sowed it in his previous birth. The Karma of a man draws him away from a foreign country and makes him feel its consequence even in spite of his will. A man gets in life what he is fated to get, and even a god cannot make it otherwise. Thus neither do I wonder nor mourn my lot, O Saunaka. What is lotted cannot be blotted.⁸⁸ A frightened mouse runs to its hole; a scared serpent, to a well; a terrified elephant, to its stake—but where can a man fly from his Karma?

Knowledge imparted is knowledge gained. Fresh water springs up from beneath the well that has been bored out.

* Different reading.—“What is mine cannot be others.”

Riches earned honestly and fairly, are true riches; opulence acquired by honest means, is true opulence:—Do not lose sight of the fact, when you try to acquire any thing in life. The amount of hardship which a man undergoes in order to earn his bread, is infinitely greater than what is necessary for acquiring religious merit which can grant him an immunity from such troubles in his births to come.

Of all cleanliness, cleanliness of food, is the best. Truthfulness is the cleanliness of speech. A clean mind denotes a clean spirit. Subjugation of the senses is the only true cleanliness of the flesh. Kindness to all constitutes one sort of cleanliness of which cleansing by water forms the fifth method. Heaven is open and easily accessible to a man of truth; and he who lieth not, is holier than a horse-sacrifice. Impure is the person of a miscreant or of an evil-thinker which cannot be cleansed, though a thousand times rubbed with clay, or a hundred times washed with water. He who has subjugated his mind and acquired knowledge, fame and a full control over his hands and feet, and has practised penance and meditation as well, acquires for himself the merit of a pilgrimage. Not to be jubilant over a mark of honour or distinction, nor to take umbrage at any humiliation, as well as forbearance from using any abusive language are the qualities which mark a truly virtuous man. A man can never come to any grief by listening to the sweet admonitions of a wise, though poor man at the opportune moment. Neither by. prowess and wisdom, nor by magic and incantations can a man attain to that which he is not fated to receive:—What is there to mourn for in this? Sometimes I have got a thing without seeking it. Sometimes my fervent prayer for a thing has rested unanswered. A thing goes there where it is wanted:—What is there to mourn for in this? Bevies of birds pass the night on the boughs of the same tree only to be dispersed on the break of day:—What is there to mourn for in this? What is there to mourn for in the fact, if one or two out of an innumerable host, all permeated with the same purpose and proceeding to the same destination, reaches the goal a little earlier? Our life comes from the unseen and goes to the unseen, its middle part being only patent and manifest:—What is there to mourn for in this, O Shaunaka? A man dies not before the appointed time, even if he is riddled with shafts. A wound from the tip of a Kusha sprout proves fatal at the right moment. A man receives that which he is fated to receive, goes only there where fate leads him to, and finds only that much pleasure or pain what he is destined to meet in this life:—What is there to mourn for in this life? Flowers bloom and fruits ripen in their appointed time and of their own accord without waiting for any body’s bidding; and the effects of one’s Karma, O Shaunaka, bide their time and become patent only on the right occasion. Birth, education, conduct, character, virtue or connection avails not a man in this life. The effects of one’s Karma and penance, done in aîprior existence, fructify, like a tree at the appointed time in the next.

The Karma of a man forcibly draws him to the place where death or fortune waits him. The effects of deeds (Karma) done by a man in a prior existence overtake and choose him out in the next, as a calf seeks out its own mother out of a thousand cows. Thus one’s Karma blinds one for good or for evil. Pleasure or pain, happiness or misery is the direct result of one’s good or bad deeds in a prior birth. Why do you make such a heavy stock of misery out of it, O you foolish one?

The vile are ever prone to detect the faults of others, though they be as small as mustard seeds, and persistently shut their eyes against their own, though they be as large as Vilva fruits. I come to the conclusion after much deliberation, O thou twice-born one, that pleasure exists not where desire or affection has a room to be. True happiness lies in the extinction of all emotions. Apprehension is where affection is. Where there is affection there is misery. Pain has its root in love or affection. Renounce affection and you shall be happy. This human body is a theatre of pleasure and pain, and they come into being pari passu with the self of a man. Dependence or Bondage is misery. Liberty or Emancipation is the only happiness vouchsafed to man. Learn this to be a general synopsis, O Shaunaka, of the rules of pleasure and pain. Misery follows happiness and happiness follows misery like the spokes of a wheel. What is gone is gone for good. What is future is still remote. He who acts only in the living present, knows no affliction.