Kural Page 4
Of those who give.
233.
Save fame unique and towering, nothing stands
Undying in this world.
234.
The gods prefer to the merely learned
Those long-famed on earth.
235.
It is only the wise who can convert
Loss into gain, and death into life.
236.
Be born, if you must, for fame: or else
Better not be born at all.*
237.
Why do the nameless blame those that despise them
Rather than themselves?
238.
To die without leaving a name, they say,
Is to incur the world’s reproach.
239.
The earth that bears inglorious bodies
Will bear less and less.*
240.
Life without blame is life,
Without fame death.
(iii) Ascetic Virtue
25. Kindliness
241.
The richest of riches is kindliness: mere pelf
Even the mean possess.
242.
Seek and secure kindliness, the aid
Which differing codes prescribe.
243.
The darkness and distress of hell
Are not for the kindly.
244.
Those kindly to all creatures it is said
Need fear no future for themselves.
245.
Our wind-blown world attests that grief
Never afflicts the kindly.
246.
Those who are unkind and do ill, they say,
Must be oblivious of the things that matter.
247.
This world is not for the poor,
Nor the next for the unkind.
248.
The poor may be rich one day, but the graceless
Will always lack grace.
249.
Sooner may the muddled head see Truth
Than the hard heart do right.
250.
When you threaten a weaker than yourself
Think of yourself before a bully.
26. Vegetarianism
251.
How can he be kindly
Who fattens himself on others’ fat?
252.
The fruits of wealth are not for the wastrel,
Nor of grace for a meat-eater.
253.
Like a man armed to kill,
A meat-eater does not discriminate.
254.
Grace is not killing, to kill disgrace;
And to eat a thing killed, profitless sin.
255.
Not being swallowed is life; and hell
Will swallow the meat-eater.*
256.
If men refrain from eating meat
There will be none to sell it.*
257.
Know meat for an animal’s sore that it is,
And you will not eat it.
258.
The undeluded will not feed on meat
Which is but carrion.
259.
Better than a thousand burnt offerings
Is one life unkilled, uneaten.
260.
All living things will fold their hands and bow
To one who refuses meat.
27. Penance
261.
To bear your pain and not pain others
Is penance summed up.
262.
Penance is for the capable:
For others a vanity.
263.
Is it to aid those intent on penance
That the rest refrain from it?
264.
Through penance, if one wishes
Foes can be routed, friends advanced.
265.
Men do penance on earth
That they may get their heart’s desire.
266.
The penance-doer realizes his self, while those
Caught in yearning’s net defeat themselves.
267.
As fire refines gold and makes it glow
So pain the penance-doer.
268.
All the world will worship him
Whose soul is his own.
269.
Even death is no bar to those
Strengthened by penance.
270.
The have-nots outnumber the haves
Because penance is not for the many.
28. Impropriety
271.
The five elements will laugh within*
At a hypocrite’s lying conduct.
272.
What use is a sky-high pose to one
Who knowingly does wrong?
273.
A weakling in a giant’s form
Is an ox grazing in a tiger’s skin.
274.
A sinning ascetic uses his cloak
As a bird-hunter a bush.
275.
Those who say they are unattached and sin
Will cry in misery, “Alas!” “Alas!”
276.
There is none so cruel as the lying ascetic
Who lives by deceit.
277.
Like the konri red to view but black on top
Are many, ochre-robed but black within.*
278.
Many spotted minds bathe in holy streams
And lead a double life.
279.
The lute is bent, the arrow straight: judge men
Not by their looks but acts.
280.
No need of tonsure or long hair
If one but avoids what the world condemns.
29. Thieving
281.
If you would avoid contempt,
Guard your thought against theft.
282.
The very thought of robbing another
Is evil.
283.
Stolen wealth may seem to swell
But in the end will burst.
284.
The lust to steal will in the end
Give endless trouble.
285.
Those are incapable of other-worldly love
Who plot evil for worldly goods.
286.
They will not stick to virtue
Who love stealing.
287.
The wish to steal, that dark cloud of unknowing,
Will not overtake the virtuous.
288.
As virtue in a good man’s thoughts,
So greed and deceit in a thief’s.
289.
Those who know nothing but to rob
Will sin and fail at once.
290.
The unthieving gain heaven;
Thieves lose both body and soul.
30. Truthfulness
291.
Truthfulness may be described as utterance
Wholly devoid of ill.
292.
Even a lie is truthful
If it does unsullied good.
293.
Lie not against your conscience
Lest it burn you.
294.
Not false to one’s own conscience one will reign
In all the world’s consciousness.
295.
Truthfulness in thought and word
Outweighs penance and charity.*
296.
Nothing can equal truthfulness
In getting fame and other virtues.
297.
To be unfailingly true
Is to be unfailing in other virtues.
298.
Water ensures external purity
And truthfulness shows the internal.
299.
All lights are not lights: to the wise
The only light is truth.
300.
In all the gospels we have rea
d we have found
Nothing held higher than truthfulness.
31. Wrath
301.
The real curb is curbing effective wrath;
What matters other wrath, curbed or uncurbed?
302.
Vain wrath is bad, but where it avails
There is nothing worse.
303.
Be wroth with none; all evil
Springs of it.
304.
Is there a foe more fell than wrath
Which kills laughter and love?
305.
Keep wrath at bay if you would guard yourself;
Unchecked it kills.
306.
Wrath is a fire which kills near and far
Burning both kinsmen and life’s boat.*
307.
A wrathful man’s ruin is as hurtful and sure
As the earth struck with one’s hand.
308.
It is better to curb one’s wrath
Even against blazing affront.
309.
All things desired are his at once
Whose mind is free of wrath.
310.
Temper intemperate is death,
Wrath given up renunciation.
32. Not Hurting Others
311.
The pure in heart will never hurt others
Even for wealth and renown.*
312.
The code of the pure in heart
Is not to return hurt for angry hurt.
313.
Vengeance even against a wanton insult
Does endless damage.*
314.
Punish an evil-doer by shaming him
With a good deed, and forget.
315.
What good is that sense which does not feel and prevent
All creatures’ woes as its own?
316.
Do not do to others what you know
Has hurt yourself.
317.
It is best to refrain from wilfully hurting*
Anyone, anytime, anyway.
318.
Why does one hurt others
Knowing what it is to be hurt?
319.
The hurt you cause in the forenoon self-propelled
Will overtake you in the afternoon.
320.
Hurt comes to the hurtful; hence it is
That those don’t hurt who do not want to be hurt.
33. Non-killing
321.
The sum of virtue is not to kill
All sin comes from killing.
322.
The first of virtues in every creed
Is to share your food and cherish all life.
323.
The unique virtue is non-killing; Not lying comes next.
324.
Right conduct may be defined
As the creed of not killing.
325.
Ascetics fear rebirth and renounce the world:
How much better to fear murder and renounce killing!
326.
Death that eats up all shall not prevail
Against the non-killer.
327.
Even at the cost of one’s own life
One should avoid killing.
328.
However great its gains, the wise despise
The profits of slaughter.*
329.
Professional killers are pariahs
To the discerning.
330.
A diseased, poor and low life, they say,
Comes of killing in the past.
34. Impermanence
331.
To take the fleeting for the permanent
Is foolish and pitiable.
332.
Great wealth, like a crowd at a concert,
Gathers and melts.
333.
Wealth never stays; use it on the instant
On things that stay.
334.
A day, so called, if rightly understood,
Is a sword hacking at life.
335.
Do good in time, ere the tongue dies
With the last hiccup.
336.
“He was here yesterday”, gloats the earth over man,
“Today he is gone”.*
337.
Men unsure of the next moment
Make more than a million plans.
338.
Like a bird’s to the shell it leaves
Is a life’s link to its body.
339.
Death is but a sleep, and birth
An awakening.
340.
Can life never have a house of its own
Cribbed ever in its cabin?
35. Renunciation
341.
As one by one we give up
We get freer and freer of pain.
342.
Renounce early if you seek joy;
Great gladness awaits the ascetic.
343.
Control the five senses and give up
All longings at once.
344.
To give up all behoves the ascetic:
Attachment deludes.
345.
When on liberation’s road the very body is a burden
Why take other luggage?
346.
His is the world beyond heaven
Who is free of the delusion of “I” and “Mine”.
347.
Sorrows will cling to those who cling
To likes and dislikes.
348.
Those who give up all are saved;
The rest are caught in delusion.
349.
Life’s tangle is cut with detachment;
Uncut the thread is endless.
350.
Cling to the One who clings to nothing;
And so clinging, cease to cling.*
36. Realization
351.
Of the folly which takes the unreal for real
Comes the wretchedness of birth.
352.
The pure of vision undeluded
Shall taste radiant joy.
353.
To those freed of doubt and clear
More than earth is Heaven near.
354.
Where a sense of the Real is lacking,
The other five senses are useless.*
355.
The mark of wisdom is to see the reality
Behind each appearance.
356.
Those who have learnt to see the reality here
Will have learnt not to come back here.
357.
Reality once searched and seized
No need to think of rebirth.
358.
Wisdom is that rare realization
Which removes the folly of rebirth.
359.
To one who clings and does not cling
Clinging ills will not cling.
360.
Where lust, wrath and delusion are unknown
Sorrow shall not be.
37. Yearning
361.
Desire, they say, is the seed of ceaseless birth
For all things living at all times.
362.
“No birth again” should be our only wish—
And the way to that is never to wish at all.
363.
No greater fortune here than not to yearn,
And none to excel it hereafter too!
364.
Purity is freedom from yearning
And comes of seeking Truth.
365.
Those are free who are free of yearning;
Others, of all else free, unfree.*
366.
Desire is the great betrayer, and its dread
The best virtue.
367.
To him who uproots desire salvation comes
>
In the most desirable form.
368.
Where yearning is not, sorrow is not;
Where it is, endless dole.
369.
Where yearning ceases, the sorrow of sorrows,
Joy unceasing shall flow.
370.
Eternal joy is ensured
When yearning ever hungry is expelled.
(iv) Fate
38. Fate
371.
Favouring fate induces energy,
Depriving fate inertia.*
372.
Adverse fate befools, and when time serves
A friendly fate sharpens the brain.
373.
A man may have studied many subtle works,
But what survives is his innate wisdom.
374.
Twofold is the way of the world—
Wealth is one, wisdom another.
375.
Favourable means prove adverse, adverse help
When fate intervenes.
376.
What is not naturally ours cannot be got,
Nor what is, ejected.
377.
Except as disposed by the Great Disposer
Even crores amassed may not be enjoyed.
378.
That the destitutes have not become ascetics
Is because of their fate.
379.
Why do those who take good luck in their stride
Jibe at bad?
380.
What is stronger than fate which foils
Every ploy to counter it?
Book II
WEALTH
(i) The State
39. The King
381.
Who has these six is a lion among kings:
An army, subjects, food, ministers, allies and forts.
382.
These four unfailing mark a king:
Courage, liberality, wisdom and energy.
383.
A ruler should never lack these three:
Diligence, learning and boldness.
384.
He is a true king who sticks to virtue,
Removes evil, and is spotless in valour.
385.
He is a king who can do these—
Produce, acquire, conserve and dispense.
386.
That king is to be extolled
Who is easy of access and soft-spoken.
387.
The world will yield all to that king
Who is sweet-spoken and liberal.
388.
He who is a just protector
Will be deemed the Lord’s Deputy.
389.
That land is safe which is under his parasol
Who hears with patience what may not please.
390.
A light among kings is he who has
Grace, bounty, justice and concern.