ver invigorating. By,
eating them one's teeth are broken while the taste is not gratified. The
triple aggregate has three disadvantages with three inseparable adjuncts.
Carefully considering those adjuncts, the disadvantages should be
avoided.[424] The unpaid balance of a debt, the unquenched remnant of a
fire, and the unslain remnant of foes, repeatedly grow and increase.
Therefore, all those should be completely extinguished and exterminated.
Debt, which always grows, is certain to remain unless wholly
extinguished. The same is the cause with defeated foes and neglected
maladies. These always produce great feats. (One should, therefore, always
eradicate them). Every act should be done thoroughly. One should be always
heedful. Such a minute thing as a thorn, if extracted badly, leads to
obstinate gangrene. By slaughtering its population, by tearing up its
roads and otherwise injuring them, and by burning and pulling down its
houses, a king should destroy a hostile kingdom. A kings should be
far-sighted like the vulture, motionless like a crane, vigilant like a
dog, valiant like a lion, fearful like a crow, and penetrate the
territories of his foes like a snake with ease and without anxiety. A
king should win over a hero by joining his palms, a coward by inspiring
him with fear, and a covetous man by gifts of wealth while with an equal
he should wage war. He should be mindful of producing disunion among the
leaders of sects and of conciliating those that are dear to him. He
should protect his ministers from disunion and destructions. If the king
becomes mild, the people disregard him. If he becomes stern, the people
feel it as an affliction. The rule is that he should be stern when the
occasion requires sternness, and mild when the occasion requires
mildness. By mildness should the mild be cut. By mildness one may destroy
that which is fierce. There is nothing that mildness cannot effect. For
this reason, mildness is said to be sharper than fierceness. That king
who becomes mild when the occasion requires mildness and who becomes
stern when sternness is required, succeeds in accomplishing all his
objects, and in putting down his foes. Having incurred the animosity of a
person possessed of knowledge and wisdom, one should not draw comfort
from the conviction that one is at a distance (from one's foe).
Far-reaching are the arms of an intelligent man by which he injures when
injured. That should not be sought to be crossed w