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  The best of virtues is the modesty

  Which holds back before seniors.

  716.

  A slip in a learned assembly

  Is like sliding at the gate to heaven.*

  717.

  Scholarship shines in an assembly

  Of meticulous scholars.

  718.

  Speaking before those quick to grasp

  Is watering a plant in fertile soil.

  719.

  Don’t tell an assembly of fools even forgetfully

  Things meant for wise men.

  720.

  To address an unfit audience

  Is to spill nectar in a sewer.

  73. Facing an Assembly

  721.

  The expert speaker will make no slip

  Addressing an assembly he has gauged.

  722.

  Most learned among the learned is he

  Whose learning the learned accept.

  723.

  Many face death in battle: only a few

  Face an assembly.

  724.

  Let the learned learn from you, and you

  From one more learned.

  725.

  Learn grammar and dialectics that you may

  Be fearless in dispute.

  726.

  What use is a sword to a coward

  Or learning to the tongue-tied?

  727.

  The learning of the tongue-tied

  Is a sword in a poltroon’s hand.*

  728.

  They are useless however learned

  Who cannot impress the wise.

  729.

  The world will rate the tongue-tied scholar

  As worse than the ignorant.

  730.

  Those who through stage-fright keep their learning to themselves

  Though living, are dead.

  74. The Land

  731.

  Tireless farmers, learned men and honest traders

  Constitute a country.

  732.

  Wealth large and enviable, and produce free of pests

  Make up a country.

  733.

  The hallmark of an ideal land

  Is to bear all burdens and pay all taxes willingly.

  734.

  An ideal land is free of hunger,

  Pestilence and war.

  735.

  Groupism, internal dissensions and seditious chiefs

  Are absent in an ideal land.

  736.

  That land is called leading which knows no evil days

  And whose yields can meet bad days when they come.

  737.

  A land’s limbs are water of two kinds,* hills with streams well-placed

  And a strong fortress.

  738.

  Health, wealth, fertility, joy and safety

  Are called a land’s five ornaments.

  739.

  Call that a land which yields without toil,

  Not that where toil precedes yield.

  740.

  All excellences are vain

  Where ruler and ruled disagree.

  75. Forts

  741.

  A fort is paramount

  Alike to aggressor and defender.

  742.

  Blue water, open space, hills and thick forests

  Constitute a fortress.

  743.

  The books prescribe that fortress walls

  Should be high, thick, strong and impregnable.

  744.

  A fortress spacious with few weak spots

  Will demoralize a foe.

  745.

  A good fortress is hard to seize, well-supplied

  And suited to those within.

  746.

  With all things needed a fort should have

  An efficient garrison.

  747.

  No siege, storm or treachery

  Can take a good fort.

  748.

  In a good fort, the besieged

  Can withstand and defeat the foe.

  749.

  A good fort gains fame

  Frustrating its siege at the outset.

  750.

  A fortress however good is nothing

  Without men mighty in action.

  76. Wealth

  751.

  There is nothing like wealth

  To make the worthless worthy.

  752.

  Everyone despises the poor

  And extol the rich.

  753.

  Wealth, a lamp never going out,

  Dispels the gloom in distant lands.

  754.

  Wealth acquired sinless and well

  Yields both virtue and happiness.

  755.

  Wealth unblessed by giver and taker

  Should not be touched.

  756.

  Ownerless property, tools and tributes

  Belong to the king.

  757.

  Compassion child of love, is nourished

  By wealth, the generous foster-mother.

  758.

  A wealthy man’s undertakings

  Are elephant fights witnessed from a hill.

  759.

  Stock wealth: no steel sharper than that

  To cut down your foe’s pride.

  760.

  Shining wealth well-gathered

  Attracts the other two.*

  77. Army

  761.

  The greatest wealth of a king is an army

  Well-manned and fearless.

  762.

  Veterans alone stand firm in dire straits

  Decimated but fearless.

  763.

  An army of rats may roar like the sea,*

  But the hiss of a cobra will silence it.

  764.

  Tried soldiers who cannot be bought

  Are an army’s best part.

  765.

  That is an army which stands together

  And defies death itself.

  766.

  Courage, honour, tradition and steadfastness

  Are an army’s four shields.

  767.

  An army should withstand and confound

  The foe’s tactics, and advance.

  768.

  An army poor in advance and defence

  May yet make a big show.

  769.

  An army will win where there is no desertion,

  Disaffection and niggardliness.

  770.

  However many and good its soldiers

  An army without leaders will melt away.

  78. Valour

  771.

  “Foes, don’t withstand my chief—many who did

  Now stand as stone!”*

  772.

  Better the spear that missed an elephant

  Than the arrow that killed a hare.

  773.

  Valour in battle is called manliness,

  But help in a foe’s distress cuts deeper,

  774.

  Losing his spear hurled at a tusker

  A hero grabs happily the one skewering him.*

  775.

  When a foe hurls his spear, even to wink

  Is to a hero retreat.

  776.

  Days devoid of honourable wounds

  Are to a hero a waste.

  777.

  That hero is worthy of his anklet*

  Who gives up his life for fame.

  778.

  Even a king’s wrath cannot hold back

  Heroes ready to die in battle.

  779.

  Who dares despise a man for not fulfilling

  A pledge he died to fulfil?

  780.

  How welcome is the death which brings

  Tears to a grateful king!

  79. Friendship

  781.

  What is rarer to get than friendship

  And a stronger shield against a foe?r />
  782.

  Wise men’s friendship waxes like the crescent

  And fools’, like the full moon, wanes.

  783.

  Good friends are like good books—

  A perpetual delight.

  784.

  Friendship is not for jollity

  But swift correction when needed.

  785.

  Friendship needs neither touch nor time

  But like feelings alone.

  786.

  One may smile and smile and be no friend

  The heart should smile with the face.

  787.

  Friendship curbs wrong, guides right,

  And shares distress.

  788.

  Swift as one’s hand to slipping clothes

  Is a friend in need.

  789.

  Friendship reigns there where, ever the same,

  It gives every help.

  790.

  That friendship is mean which boasts,

  “He loves me and

  I him”.

  80. Choosing Friends

  791.

  There is nothing worse than rash friendship

  For friends once made can’t be abandoned.

  792.

  Make friends in haste

  And repent at leisure.

  793.

  Make one a friend after knowing

  His nature, family, fellows and flaws.

  794.

  A man of birth and scrupulous honour

  Is worth seeking even at a price.

  795.

  Seek a friend who will make you cry,

  Rail and rate when you go astray.

  796.

  Adversity has this use—as a yardstick

  To spread out and measure friends.*

  797.

  It is a godsend to be rid

  Of friendship with fools.

  798.

  Avoid diffidence

  And deserters in need.

  799.

  A friend’s betrayal rankles

  Even on the deathbed.

  800.

  Seek the friendship of the pure, and shake off

  The worthless even at a price.

  81. Old Friends

  801.

  Call that an old friendship

  Where liberties are not resented.

  802.

  The soul of friendship is freedom

  Which the wise should welcome.

  803.

  What is that intimacy which does not approve

  And reciprocate liberties?

  804.

  The wise are pleased when friends take the liberty

  Of doing what they should have done.

  805.

  If friends hurt, put it down

  To ignorance or familiarity.

  806.

  True friends* will not give up old comrades

  Even when they have brought harm.

  807.

  Old friends won’t cease to love

  Even when injured.

  808.

  The friend who will not hear his friend decried

  Hails the day his friend offends.

  809.

  The world loves him who sticks

  To a long friendship.

  810.

  Even foes love those who are loyal

  To an erring friend.

  82. Bad Friends

  811.

  The love of the worthless however ardent

  Had better decrease than grow.

  812.

  What matter if one gain or lose

  A motivated friendship?

  813.

  Designing friends are no better

  Than prostitutes and thieves.

  814.

  Better no friends than those who resemble

  Horses unbroken on the battlefield.

  815.

  Better no friends than the base

  Who betray at need.

  816.

  A wise man’s enmity is a crore of times better

  Than a fool’s fast friendship.

  817.

  Ten crore times better the enmity of foes

  Than the friendship of jesters and fools.

  818.

  Drop silently the friends who pose

  And won’t help when they can.

  819.

  Friends whose words differ from their deeds

  Distress even in dreams.

  820.

  Keep them far off who are friends at home

  And foes in public.

  83. False Friends

  821.

  False friends are anvils, not aids

  When you are struck.*

  822.

  Fickle as a woman’s heart

  Is feigned friendship.

  823.

  Hateful enmity is not affected

  By wide learning.

  824.

  Beware of those who smile without

  And are false within.

  825.

  When minds do not agree

  Don’t trust mere words.

  826.

  A foe’s words though seeming friendly

  Can be read at once.

  827.

  Don’t trust the bowing speech of a foe

  Any more than a bow.

  828.

  Folded hands may conceal a dagger—

  Likewise a foe’s tears.

  829.

  It is politics to please and hoodwink those

  Who flatter but despise us.

  830.

  When the foe approaches like a friend

  Smile, but don’t befriend,

  84. Folly

  831.

  Folly lies in seizing what brings ill

  And letting the good slip.

  832.

  The folly of follies is to love

  The improper.

  833.

  A fool has no sense of shame, or curiosity,

  Or love, or regard.

  834.

  There is no greater fool than he

  Who has studied and taught, but lacks control.

  835.

  A fool does deeds in a single birth

  That will plunge him in hell in the succeeding seven.

  836.

  When a fool takes on a task,

  The task is undone, and so is he!

  837.

  When a fool gets a fortune, his nearest starve

  And strangers are sated.

  838.

  A fool getting hold of wealth

  Is like a lunatic getting drunk.

  839.

  Sweet indeed is a fool’s friendship—

  For when it breaks there is no pain.

  840.

  A fool’s entry into a learned assembly

  Is like a dirty foot on a clean bed.*

  85. Conceit

  841.

  The lack of lacks is the lack of knowledge—

  Other lacks are not deemed such by the world.

  842.

  If one gets a gift from a fool

  It is just a piece of luck.

  843.

  The harm fools do to themselves

  Is beyond anything their foes do to them.

  844.

  Folly is nothing but the conceit

  That one is wise.

  845.

  Pretence to learning not learnt

  Calls in question the learning learnt.

  846.

  Can a fool be said to be clothed

  When his faults lie exposed?

  847.

  A fool’s greatest harm to himself

  Is rejecting precious knowledge.*

  848.

  A fool who neither knows nor listens to others

  Is a plague till he dies.

  849.

  He is blind who would make the blind see

  Who can only see as they used to.

  850.

&nb
sp; He who denies what the world affirms

  Will be thought a demon.

  86. Malice

  851.

  Malice, they say, is the disease

  Which breeds aversion to all life.

  852.

  Even if another’s hatred causes harm

  Avoid hostility and retaliation.

  853.

  He will achieve undying fame

  Who discards hatred.

  854.

  When the misery of miseries, malice, ceases

  Comes the joy of joys.

  855.

  Who would want to fight against him

  That has no hatred in his heart?

  856.

  A man fond of hostility

  Will lose quickly wealth and life.

  857.

  Those rapt up in destructive hate

  Will never see the great truths in moral codes.

  858.

  To resist hatred is a gain,

  To yield to it ruin.

  859.

  Destined to prosper one will not look at hatred;

  Destined for ruin, will see it all the time.

  860.

  From hatred comes all evil; and from love

  The riches of virtue.

  87. Easy Targets

  861.

  Avoid warfare with the strong,

  And choose the weak for foes.

  862.

  Loveless, without support and weak,

  How can one withstand attack?

  863.

  A coward, ignorant, unsocial and mean

  Is an easy prey to his enemy.

  864.

  The unrestrained and angry are an easy prey

  To anyone, anytime, anywhere.

  865.

  An erring, remiss, shameless cad

  Is welcome to his foes.

  866.

  Blind fury and inordinate lust

  Are easy targets.

  867.

  He is a foe worth purchasing

  Who starts a fight and does all wrong.

  868.

  Lacking virtue and full of faults

  The friendless strengthen the enemy.

  869.

  His joy is immense who gets for his foe

  A fool and a coward.

  870.

  Fame will escape him who lets escape

  An easy victory over a fool.

  88. Strategy

  871.

  War is an evil which none even in jest

  Should desire.

  872.

  Make foes of bowmen if you must,

  Never of penmen.

  873.

  More destitute than a lunatic is the lone fighter

  With multiple foes.

  874.

  The world is secure under one whose nature

  Can make friends of foes.

  875.

  Facing two foes, unaided and alone

  Make one your friend.