hope thou
slayest thy foes without regarding their seasons of reaping and of
famine? O king, I hope thy servants and agents in thy own kingdom and in
the kingdoms of thy foes continue to look after their respective duties
and to protect one another. O monarch, I hope trusted servants have been
employed by thee to look after thy food, the robes thou wearest and the
perfumes thou usest. I hope, O king, thy treasury, barns, stables
arsenals, and women's apartments, are all protected by servants devoted
to thee and ever seeking thy welfare. I hope, O monarch, thou protectest
first thyself from thy domestic and public servants, then from those
servants of thy relatives and from one another. Do thy servants, O king,
ever speak to thee in the forenoon regarding thy extravagant expenditure
in respect of thy drinks, sports, and women? Is thy expenditure always
covered by a fourth, a third or a half of thy income? Cherishest thou
always, with food and wealth, relatives, superiors, merchants, the aged,
and other proteges, and the distressed? Do the accountants and clerks
employed by thee in looking after thy income and expenditure, always
appraise thee every day in the forenoon of thy income and expenditure?
Dismissest thou without fault servants accomplished in business and
popular and devoted to thy welfare? O Bharata, dost thou employ superior,
indifferent, and low men, after examining them well in offices they
deserve? O monarch, employest thou in thy business persons that are
thievish or open to temptation, or hostile, or minors? Persecutest thou
thy kingdom by the help of thievish or covetous men, or minors, or women?
Are the agriculturists in thy kingdom contented. Are large tanks and
lakes constructed all over thy kingdom at proper distances, without
agriculture being in thy realm entirely dependent on the showers of
heaven? Are the agriculturists in thy kingdom wanting in either seed or
food? Grantest thou with kindness loans (of seed-grains) unto the
tillers, taking only a fourth in excess of every measure by the hundred?
O child, are the four professions of agriculture, trade, cattle-rearing,
and lending at interest, carried on by honest men? Upon these O monarch,
depends the happiness of thy people. O king, do the five brave and wise
men, employed in the five offices of protecting the city, the citadel,
the merchants, and the agriculturists, and punishing the criminals,
always benefit thy kingdom by working in union wit