, peace and
self-restraint, destiny and exertion, salvation and condemnation, fear
and fearlessness, injury and abstention from injury, penances and
sacrifice and rigid abstinence, poison and healthy food, the beginning,
the middle, and the end, the result of all murderous acts, insolence,
insanity, arrogance, pride, patience, policy, impolicy, powerlessness and
power, respect, disrespect, decay and stability, humility, charity,
fitness of time and unfitness of time, falsehood, wisdom, truth, belief,
disbelief, impotence, trade, profit, loss, success, defeat, fierceness,
mildness, death, acquisition and non-acquisition, agreement and
disagreement, that which should be done and that which should not be
done, strength and weakness, malice and goodwill, righteousness and
unrighteousness, shame and shamelessness, modesty, prosperity and
adversity, energy, acts, learning, eloquence, keenness of
understanding,--all these, O Yudhishthira, are forms of Chastisement in
this world. Hence, Chastisement is exceedingly multiform. If Chastisement
had not existed, all creatures would have ground one another. Through
fear of Chastisement, O Yudhishthira, living creatures do not slay one
another. The subjects, O king, always protected by Chastisement, enhance
the might of their ruler. It is for this that Chastisement is regarded as
the foremost refuge of all. Chastisement, O king, quickly sets the world
on the path of righteousness. Dependent upon truth, righteousness exists
in the Brahmanas. Endued with righteousness, foremost of Brahmanas became
attached to the Vedas. From the Vedas the sacrifices flow. Sacrifices
gratify the deities. The deities, being gratified, commend the denizens
of the earth to Indra. For benefiting the denizens of the earth, Indra
gives them food (in the form of rain without which crops and vegetation
would fail). The life of all creatures depends upon food. From food
creatures derive their support and growth. Chastisement (in the form of
the Kshatriya ruler) remains wakeful amongst them. For serving this
object, Chastisement assumes the form of a Kshatriya among men.
Protecting men, he remains awake, always heedful and never decaying.
Chastisement has again these other eight names, viz., God, Man, Life,
Power, Heart, the Lord of all creatures, the Soul of all things, and the
Living creature. God gave both affluence and the rod of chastisement to
the king who is possessed of strength (in the form of military forc