Kural Page 7
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?
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.