From wealth spring
all religious acts, all pleasures, and heaven itself, O king! Without
wealth, a man cannot find the very means of sustaining his life. The acts
of a person who, possessed of little intelligence, suffers himself to be
divested of wealth, are all dried up like shallow streams in the summer
season. He that has wealth has friends. He that has wealth has kinsmen.
He that has wealth is regarded as a true man in the world. He that has
wealth is regarded as a learned man. If a person who hath no wealth
desires to achieve a particular purpose, he meets with failure. Wealth
brings about accessions of wealth, like elephants capturing (wild)
elephants. Religious acts, pleasures, joy, courage, wrath, learning, and
sense of dignity, all these proceed from wealth, O king! From wealth one
acquires family honour. From wealth, one's religious merit increases. He
that is without wealth hath neither this world, nor the next, O best of
men! The man that hath no wealth succeeds not in performing religious
acts, for these latter spring from wealth, like rivers from a mountain.
He that is lean in respect of (his possession of) steeds and kine and
servants and guests, is truly lean and not he whose limbs alone are so.
Judge truly, O king, and look at the conduct of the gods and the Danavas.
O king, do the gods ever wish for anything else than the slaughter of
their kinsmen (the Asuras)? If the appropriation of wealth belonging to
others be not regarded as righteous, how, O monarch, will kings practise
virtue on this earth? Learned men have, in the Vedas, laid down this
conclusion.
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