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Section Four
Bhartrihari The Century of Life
The Nitishataka of Bhartrihari freely rendered into English verse I had at first entitled the translation “The Century of Morals”, but the Sanskrit word Niti has a more complex sense. It includes also policy and worldly wisdom, the rule of successful as well as the law of ideal conduct and gives scope for observation of all the turns and forces determining the movement of human character and action. The Shataka or “century” should normally comprise a hundred epigrams, but the number that has come down to us is considerably more. The excess is probably due to accretion and the mistaken ascription to Bhartrihari of verses not of his making but cast in his spirit and manner. SRI AUROBINDO
Page – 314 Invocation
To the calm Light inviolable all hail Whom Time divides not, nor Space measures, One, Boundless and Absolute who Is alone, The eternal vast I Am immutable!
Page – 315 On Fools and Folly
Love’s Folly
She with whom all my thoughts dwell, is averse, — She loves another. He whom she desires Turns to a fairer face. Another worse For me afflicted is with deeper fires. Fie on my love and me and him and her! Fie most on Love, this madness’ minister!
The Middle Sort
Easily shalt thou the ignorant appease; The wise more easily is satisfied; But one who builds his raw and foolish pride On a little lore not God himself can please.
Obstinacy in Folly
Go, with strong violence thy jewel tear From the fierce alligator’s yawning jaws; Swim the wild surges when they lash the air Billow on billow thundering without pause; Or set an angry serpent in thy hair For garland! Sooner shalt thou gain their ruth Than conquer the fool’s obstinate heart with truth.
Page – 316 On the Same
Nay, thou wilt find sweet oil in the sea-sands, Press them but firmly in thy strenuous hands: The desert-born mirage shall slake thy thirst, Or wandering through the earth thou shalt be first To find the horns of hares, who thinkst to school With reason the prejudgments of the fool.
Obstinacy in Vice
Yea, wouldst thou task thy muscles then the dread Strength of the mammoth to constrain with thread? Canst thou the diamond’s adamant heart disclose With the sweet edge and sharpness of a rose? With a poor drop of honey wondrously Wilt thou make sweetness of the wide salt sea? Who dreamst with sugared perfect words to gain The unhonest to the ways of noble men!
Folly’s Wisdom
One cloak on ignorance absolutely fits; Justly if worn, some grace is even lent; Silence in sessions of the learned sits On the fool’s brow like a bright ornament.
Page – 317 A Little Knowledge
When I was with a little knowledge cursed, Like a mad elephant I stormed about And thought myself all-knowing. But when deep-versed Rich minds some portion of their wealth disbursed My poverty to raise, then for a lout And dunce I knew myself, and the insolence went Out from me like a fever violent.
Pride of Littleness
The dog upon a meatless bone and lank, Horrible, stinking, vile, with spittle wet, Feasts and with heaven’s nectar gives it rank. Then though the ambrosial God should by him stand, He is not awed nor feels how base his fate, But keeps his ghastly gettings more in hand. The little nature deems its small things great And virtue scorns and strength and noble state.
Facilis Descensus
In highest heavens the Ganges’ course began; From Shiva’s loftiest brow to the white snows She tumbles, nor on the cold summits can, But headlong seeks the valley and the rose. Thence downward still the heaven-born waters ran.
Say not, “Is this that Ganges? can her place Be now so low?” Rather when man at all From heavenly reason swerves, he sinks from grace Swiftly. A thousand voices downward call, A thousand doors are opened to his fall.
Page – 318 The Great Incurable
For all ill things there is a cure; the fire’s Red spleen cool water shall at once appease, And noontide’s urgent rays the sunshade tires, And there are spells for poison, and disease Finds in the leech’s careful drugs its ease. The raging elephant yet feels the goad, And the dull ass and obstinate bullock rule Cudgel and stick and force upon their road. For one sole plague no cure is found — the fool.
Bodies without Mind
Some minds there are to Art and Beauty dead, Music and poetry on whose dull ear Fall barren. Horns grace not their brutish head, Tails too they lack, yet is their beasthood clear. That Heaven ordained not upon grass their feasts, Good fortune is this for the other beasts.
The Human Herd
Whose days to neither charity nor thought Are given, nor holy deeds nor virtues prized, Nor learning, such to cumber earth were brought. How in the human world as men disguised This herd walk grazing, higher things unsought!
Page – 319 A Choice
Better were this, to roam in deserts wild, On difficult mountains and by desolate pools, A savage life with wild beasts reconciled, Than Paradise itself mated with fools.
Page – 320 On Wisdom
Poets and Princes
Unhonoured in a State when poets dwell Whose fames range wider than its strong-winged birds, Whose utterance is for grace adorable Of chosen speech and art of noble words, Whose wisdom hundreds come to hear and tell; The world that nation’s chief for dullness blames, For poets without wealth are rich and kings: When values low depreciate costly things, ‘Tis the appraiser’s shame and not the gem’s.
True Wealth
Knowledge is truest wealth, not this which dies, — It cherishes a strange deep peace within Unutterably, nor the robber’s eyes Ever shall find it out; to give it is gain, It then grows most when parted with, and poured With sleepless hand fills gloriously its lord. Worlds perish may, Knowledge survives their fall; This wise men cherish; O Kings, your pride recall, You have but wealth, they inner royalty Of lordliest wisdom. Who with these shall vie?
Page – 321 The Man of Knowledge
Scorn not the man of knowledge to whose eyes The secrets of the world have been revealed! Thou canst not hold his spirit from the skies By fortune light nor all that earth can yield. The furious tusker with new dark rut stained Were sooner by a lotus-thread detained.
Fate and Wisdom
What can the extreme wrath of hostile Fate? The swan that floats in the cool lotus-wood She from his pleasant mansion can exclude. His fame remains, in food adulterate1 Who could the better choose, the worse discern. Fate cannot touch glory that mind can earn.
The Real Ornament
It is not armlets that adorn a man, Nor necklaces all crammed with moonbright pearls, Nor baths, nor ointments, nor arranged curls. ‘Tis art of excellent speech that only can Adorn him: jewels perish, garlands fade; This only abides and glitters undecayed.
1 The swan was supposed to have the power of separating milk from water, when the two were mixed.
Page – 322 The Praises of Knowledge
Knowledge is nobler beauty in a man Than features: ’tis his hidden hoard of price; This the long roll of Masters first began; Pleasure it brings, just fame and constant bliss, And is a helping friend in foreign lands, And is a very god with puissant hands. Knowledge, not wealth in great men is adored, Nor better than a beast the mind unstored.
Comparisons
Men cherish burning anger in their hearts, Yet look without to find if they have foes. Who sweet forbearance has, requires no arts Of speech; persuading silently he goes. Why fear the snake when in thy kindness bask Men evil, or a fire while kinsmen jar Burning thy house! From heaven no medicines ask To heal a troubled mind, where true friends are. Nor seek for ornaments, noble modest shame Being with thee, nor for wealth when wisdom’s by. Who needs a kingdom when his mind can claim A golden realm in sweetest poetry?
Page – 323 Worldly Wisdom
Have mercy for all men, for thy own race Have kindness, for the cunning cunning have, Affection for the good, and politic ways For princes: for thy foes a spirit brave, Patience for elders, candour for the wise: Have skilful ways to steal out women’s hearts. Who shine here, masters in these social arts, In them the human scheme deep-rooted lies.
Good Company
Company of good men is a very soil Of plenty, yielding all high things to man. The dull weight of stupidity it can Lift from the mind and cleanse of falsehood vile, Sprinkling truth’s fragrance sweet upon the speech; And it can point out greatness’ rising path, And drive out sinful lust and drive out wrath, And a calm gladness to the senses teach; Glory that to the very stars would climb, Can give thee, conquering thy heart and time.
The Conquests of Sovereign Poetry
Who are the conquerors? Not mere lords of land, But kingly poets, whose high victories Are perfect works; men’s hearts at their command Are wholly; at their will the passions rise. Glory their body is, which Death’s pale fear Afflicts not, nor abhorred Age comes near.
Page – 324 Rarities
Whatever most the soul on earth desires, Are rarities, as, a virtuous son; a wife Who wholly loves; Fortune that never tires; A friend whose sweet affection waters life; A master pleased; servants that ne’er deceive; A charming form; a mind no sorrows grieve; A mouth in wisdom proved that makes not strife. These to his favourites being pleased allows Hari, of whom the world grows amorous.
The Universal Religion
All varying Scriptures that the earth divide, Have yet one common rule that need o’erride Dogma nor rite, nor any creed offend; All to their heavens by one sole path intend. ‘Tis this: — Abstain from slaughter; others’ wealth To covet cease, and in thy speech no stealth Of falsehood harbour; give in season due According to thy power; from ribald view Or word keep far of woman, wife or maid; Be mild obedience to thy elders paid; Dam longing like a river; each act beneath Show mercy and kindness to all things that breathe.
Page – 325 Great and Meaner Spirits
Some from high action through base fear refrain; The path is difficult, the way not plain. Others more noble to begin are stayed By a few failures. Great spirits undismayed Abandon never what once to do they swore. Baffled and beaten back they spring once more, Buffeted and borne down, rise up again And, full of wounds, come on like iron men.
The Narrow Way
Kind to be, yet immutably be just; To find all baser act too hard to do, — Yea, though not doing shatter our life to dust; — Contempt that will not to the evil sue; Not to the friend that’s poor our need to state; Baffled by fortune still erect to stand; Being small to tread in footprints of the great; Who for weak men such rugged path has planned, Harder to tread than edge of this sharp brand?
Page – 326 On Pride and Heroism
Lion-Heart
The maned lion, first of kingly names, Magnanimous and famed, though worn with age, Wasted with hunger, blunted his keen edge And low the splendid spirit in him flames, Not therefore will with wretched grass assuage His famished pangs as graze the deer and bull. Rather his dying breath collects desire, Leaping once more from shattered brows to pull Of the great tusked elephants mad with ire His sovereign banquet fierce and masterful.
The Way of the Lion
The dog with a poor bone is satisfied, Meatless, with bits of fat and sinew greased, Nor is his hunger with such remnants eased. Not so the kingly lion in his pride! He lets the jackal go grazed by his claw And slays the tusked kings. Such Nature’s law; Each being pitches his high appetite At even with his courage and his might.
Page – 327 A Contrast
The dog may servile fawn upon the hand That feeds him, with his tail at wag, nor pain In crouching and his abject rollings bland With upward face and belly all in vain: The elephant to countless flatteries Returns a quiet look in steadfast eyes.
The Wheel of Life
The world goes round and, as returns the wheel, All things that die must yet again be born: His birth is birth indeed by whose return His race and country grandeur’s summits scale.
Aut Caesar aut Nullus
Two fates alone strong haughty minds endure, Of worth convinced; — on the world’s forehead proud Singly to bloom exalted o’er the crowd, Or wither in the wilderness obscure.
Page – 328 Magnanimity
My brother, exalt thyself though in o’erthrow! Five noble planets through these spaces roll, Jupiter is of them; — not on these he leaps, Rahu,1 the immortal demon of eclipse, In his high magnanimity of soul. Smit with God’s thunders only his head he keeps, Yet seizes in his brief and gloomy hour Of vengeance the great luminous kings of heaven, Day’s Lord and the light to whom night’s soul is given; He scorns to strive with things of lesser power.
The Motion of Giants
On his wide hood as on a painted shield Bears up the ranged worlds, Infinite, the Snake; Him in the giant midmost of his back The eternal Tortoise brooks, whom the great field Of vague and travelling waters ceaselessly Encompass with the proud unfathomed sea. O easy mights and marvellous of the great, Whose simplest action is yet vast with fate!
1 Rahu, the Titan, stole or seized part of the nectar which rose from the world-ocean at the churning by the Gods and Titans and was appropriated by the Gods. For this violence he was smitten in two by the discus of Vishnu; but as he had drunk the nectar, he remains immortal and seeks always to revenge himself by swallowing the Sun and Moon who had detected his theft. The Tortoise mentioned in the next epigram upheld the mountain Mandar, which was the stick of the churning. The Great Snake Ananta was the rope of the churning, he on whose hood the earth now rests.
Page – 329 Mainak
O child of the immortal mountains hoar, Mainak,2 far better had this been to bear The bleeding wings that furious Indra tore, The thunder’s scars that with disastrous roar Vomiting lightnings made the heavens one flare, — Not, not this refuge in the cool wide sea While all thy suffering people cried to thee.
Noble Resentment
The crystal hath no sense disgrace to know, Yet blazes angry when the sun’s feet rouse; Shall man the high-spirited, the orgulous, Brook insult vile from fellow or from foe?
Age and Genius
Nature, not age is the high spirit’s cause That burns in mighty hearts and genius high. Lo, on the rutting elephant’s tusked jaws The infant lion leaps invincibly.
2 The mountains had formerly wings and could move about, — to the great inconvenience of everybody: Indra, attacked by them, smote off their wings with the thunderbolt. Mainak, son of Himalaya, took refuge in the sea. Page – 330 On Wealth
The Prayer to Mammon
Cast birth into the nether Hell; let all The useless tribe of talents farther fall; Throw virtue headlong from a rock and turn High nobleness into the fire to burn; The heroic heart let some swift thunder rive, Our enemy that hinders us to live; Wealth let us only keep; this one thing less, All those become as weeds and emptiness.
A Miracle
Behold a wonder mid the sons of men! The man is undiminished he we knew, Unmaimed his organs and his senses keen Even as of old, his actions no-wise new, Voice, tone and words the same we heard before, The brain’s resistless march too as of yore; Only the flattering heat of wealth is gone, And lo! the whole man changed, his praises done.
Page – 331 Wealth the Sorcerer
He who has wealth, has birth; gold who can spill, Is scholar, doctor, critic, what you will; For who has golden coin, has golden tongue, Is glorious, gracious, beautiful and young; All virtues, talents, fames to gold repair And lodge in gold leaving the poor man bare.
Two Kinds of Loss
These things are deaths, ill-counsel ruining kings, The son by fondling spoiled, by him the race, Attachment, to the sage’s heart that clings, And natural goodness marred by company base, The Brahman by scant study unbrahminised, Sweet shame by wine o’erthrown, by wandering long Affection waning, friendship true unprized, Tillage uncared, good fortune follies wrong; But wealth in double way men may reject, Nobly by giving, poorly by neglect.
The Triple Way of Wealth
Three final roads wealth takes and only three, To give, enjoy or lose it utterly: And his whose miser hand to give is slow Nor yet enjoys, the worst third way shall go.
Page – 332 The Beauty of Giving
Be not a miser of thy strength and store; Oft in a wounded grace more beauty is. The jewel which the careful gravers score; The sweet fair girl-wife broken with bridal bliss, The rut-worn tusker, the autumnal stream With its long beaches dry and slender flood; The hero wreathed with victory’s diadem, Adorned with wounds and glorious with his blood; The moon’s last disc; rich men of their bright dross, By gifts disburdened, fairer shine by loss.
Circumstance
There is no absoluteness in objects. See This indigent man aspire as to a prize To handfuls of mere barley-bread! yet he A few days past, fed full with luxuries, Held for a trifle earth and all her skies. Not in themselves are objects great or small, But circumstance works on the elastic mind, To widen or contract. The view is all, And by our inner state the world’s defined.
Advice to a King
He fosters, King, the calf who milks the cow, And thou who takest of the wide earth tax, Foster the people; with laborious brow And sleepless vigil strive till nought it lacks. Then shall the earth become thy faery tree Of plenty, pleasure, fame, felicity.
Page – 333 Policy
Often she lies, wears sometimes brow of truth, Kind sometimes, sometimes ravening-merciless; Now open-handed, full of bounty and grace, And now a harpy; now sweet honey and ruth Flows from her tongue, now menace harsh or stern; This moment with a bottomless desire She gathers millions in, the next will tire, — Endless expense takes prodigally its turn. Thus like a harlot changes momently In princes the chameleon Policy.
The Uses of High Standing
Men highly placed by six good gifts are high. The first is noble liberality; The second, power that swift obedience brings; Service to holy men and holy things Comes next; then fame; protection then of friends; Pleasure in pleasant things the great list ends. Whose rising with these six is unallied, What seeks he by a mighty prince’s side?
Page – 334 Remonstrance with the Suppliant
What the Creator on thy forehead traced As on a plate of bronze indelibly, Expect that much or little, worst or best, Wherever thou dwell, nobly or wretchedly, Since thou shalt not have less, though full of pain In deserts waterless mid savage men Thou wander sole; nor on Olympus hoar Ranked amid mighty Gods shalt thou have more. Therefore be royal-hearted still and bold, O man, nor thy proud crest in vain abase Cringing to rich men for their gathered gold. From the small well or ocean fathomless The jar draws equally what it can hold.
The Rain-lark to the Cloud
You opulent clouds that in high heavens ride, Is’t fame you seek? but surely all men know To you the darting rain-larks homage owe! Hold you then back your showers, because your pride By our low suings must be gratified?
To the Rain-lark
O rain-lark, rain-lark, flitting near the cloud, Attentive hear, winged friend, a friendly word. All vapours are not like, the heavens that shroud Darkening; some drench the earth for noble fruit, Some are vain thunderers wandering by with bruit: Sue not to each thou seest then, O bird; If humbly entreat thou must, let few have heard.
Page – 335 On the Wicked
Evil Nature
A heart unpitying, brawling vain and rude, An eye to others’ wives and wealth inclined, Impatience of true friends and of the good, — These things are self-born in the evil mind.
The Human Cobra
Avoid the evil man with learning crowned. Lo, the dread cobra, all his hood a gem Of glory, yet he crawls upon the ground. Fearst thou him less for that bright diadem?
Virtue and Slander
A spiritless dull block call modesty; Love of long fasts and holy vows must be Mere shows, yon pure heart but a Pharisee, The world-renouncing sage a fool; the high World-conquering hero’s taxed with cruelty. This sweet word’s baseness, that great orator A windbag, and the great spirit furious pride, And calm patience an impotent weakness poor. Thus the base-natured all high things deride. Judged by the slanderous tongue, the uncandid eyes, What brightest virtue turns not blackest vice?
Page – 336 Realities
Greed if thou hast, thou art of sin secure: Being treacherous, of what heinous fault hast need? No distant temple wants whose soul is pure: Heart’s truth is more than penance, vow or creed. With natural goodness, why mere virtues pile? The soul being great, a royal crown were poor; Good books thou hast, rubies were surplus vile; When shame has pierced the heart, can death do more?
Seven Griefs
Seven griefs are as seven daggers in my heart, — To see a lake without its lilied bloom, The moon grow beggared of her radiant part, Sweet woman’s beauty fade towards the tomb, A noble hug his wealth, a good man gone Down in the press of miseries, a fair And vacant face when knowledge is not there, A base man standing by a monarch’s throne.
The Friendship of Tyrants
Tyrants have neither kin nor lover. Fire Accepts the rich man’s offerings; at the end Shall these then slake its wrathful swift desire? Nay, let him touch it! It will spare its friend!
Page – 337 The Hard Lot of the Courtier
Hard is the courtier’s lot who fain would please. Being silent, “Lo the dumb man!” they gibe; if speech Eloquent edge his wit, “He seeks to teach, The chatterer!” else, “Hark to his flatteries!” Rude, if he sit near; far, — “What want of ease!” Enduring insult, “Coward!”; if he spurn The injurer, “Surely a spawn of parents base!” Such service is in courts, whose laws to learn Wise sages are perplexed, or tread its ways.
The Upstart
Yea, how this high sun burns that was so low, Enlightening with his favours all things base! Hating all good, with chainless licence vile Of those his filthy deeds makes arrogant show Obscurely engendered in his unseen days Ere sudden fortune raised from miry soil. No virtue now, genius nor merit’s safe From vulture eyes that at all cleanness chafe.
Two Kinds of Friendship
Like shadows of the afternoon and morn Friendship in good men is and in the base; All vast the lewd man’s in its first embrace, But lessens and wears away; the other’s, born A dwarfish thing, grows giantlike apace.
Page – 338 Natural Enmities
Trust not thy innocence, nor say, “No foe I have the world through;” other is the world. The deer’s content with simple grass, yet bow Of hunter fears; the fisher’s net is hurled To catch the water’s innocents; his high And simple life contented leads the good, Yet by the evil heart insatiably With causeless hatred finds himself pursued.
Page – 339 On Virtue
Description of the Virtuous
Homage to him who keeps his heart a book For stainless matters, prone others’ gifts to prize And nearness of the good; whose faithful look Rejoices in his own dear wife; whose eyes Are humble to the Master good and wise; A passion high for learning, noble fear Of public shame who feels; treasures the still Sweet love of God; to self no minister, But schools that ravener to his lordlier will, Far from the evil herd on virtue’s hill. The Noble Nature Eloquence in the assembly; in the field The puissant act, the lion’s heart; proud looks Unshaken in defeat, but modest-kind Mercy when victory comes; passionate for books High love of learning; thoughts to fame inclined; — These things are natural to the noble mind.
Page – 340 The High and Difficult Road
To give in secret as beneath a shroud; To honour all who to thy threshold come; Do good by stealth and of thy deeds be dumb, But of another’s noble acts be proud And vaunt them in the senate and the crowd; To keep low minds in fortune’s arrogant day; To speak of foemen without scorn or rage; What finger appointed first this roughest way Of virtue narrower than the falchion’s edge? Adornment The hand needs not a bracelet for its pride, High liberality its greatness is; The head no crown wants to show deified, Fallen at the Master’s feet it best doth please. Truth-speaking makes the face more bright to shine; Deep musing is the glory of the gaze; Strength and not gold in conquering arms divine Triumphs; calm purity the heart arrays. Nature’s great men have these for wealth and gem; Riches they need not, nor a diadem. The Softness and Hardness of the Noble Being fortunate, how the noble heart grows soft As lilies! But in calamity’s rude shocks Rugged and high like a wild mountain’s rocks It fronts the thunders, granite piled aloft.
Page – 341 The Power of Company
Behold the water’s way, — on iron red When it falls hissing, not a trace remains, Yet ’tis the same that on the lotus shines, A dewy thing like pearls, — yea, pearl indeed Turns when the oyster-shell receives and heaven To those rain-bringing stars their hour has given. High virtue, vice or inconspicuous mean ‘Tis company that moulds in things or men. The Three Blessings He is a son whose noble deeds and high His loving father’s heart rejoice; She is a wife whose only jewellery Is her dear husband’s joy and bliss; He the true friend whose actions are the same In peaceful days or hours of bale and shame; These three who wins, finds earth his Paradise.
Page – 342 <p align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left:0pt”> The Ways of the Good <p align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left:0pt”> Who would not honour good men and revere Whose loftiness by modesty is shown, Whose merits not by their own vaunts appear, Best in their constant praise of others known, And for another’s good each power to brace To passionate effort is their selfishness? Hark to their garrulous slanderer’s gurge of blame Foaming with censure violent and rude! Yet they revile not back, but put to shame By their sweet patience and calm fortitude. Such are their marvellous moods, their noble ways, Whom men delight to honour and to praise. Wealth of Kindness Then is the ear adorned when it inclines To wisdom; giving bracelets rich exceeds; So the beneficent heart’s deep-stored mines Are worked for ore of sweet compassionate deeds, And with that gold the very body shines. The Good Friend Thus is the good friend pictured by the pens Of good men: — still with gentle hand he turns From sin and shame his friend, to noble gains Still spurs him on; deep in his heart inurns His secret errors, blares his parts abroad, Gives at his need, nor takes the traitor’s road Leaving with facile wings when fortune spurns.
Page – 343 The Nature of Beneficence
Freely the sun gives all his beams to wake The lotus slumbering in the darkened lake; The moon unasked expends her gentle light, Wooing to bloom her lily of the night; Unasked the cloud its watery burden gives. The noble nature in beneficence lives; Unsought, unsued, not asking kindness back Does good in secret for that good’s sole sake.
The Abomination of Wickedness
Rare are the hearts that for another’s joy Fling from them self and hope of their own bliss; Himself unhurt for others’ good to try Man’s impulse and his common nature is: But they who for their poor and selfish aims Hurt others, are but fiends with human names. Who hurt their brother men themselves unhelped, What they are, we know not, nor what horror whelped.
Water and Milk
By water and sweet milk example Love. Milk all its sweetness to the water gives, For in one wedded self their friendship lives; And when hot pangs the one to anguish move, The other immolates itself to fire. To steal his friend’s grief is a friend’s desire.
He seeing his friend’s hard state is minded too To seek the flame; but happily again Wedded to him is eased of all his pain. This friendship is, one heart that’s shared by two.
Page – 344 Altruism Oceanic
Here Vishnu sleeps, here find his foes their rest; The hills have taken refuge, serried lie Their armies in deep Ocean’s sheltering breast; The clouds of doom are of his heart possessed, He harbours nether fire whence he must die. Cherisher of all in vast equality, Lo, the wide strong sublime and patient sea!
The Aryan Ethic
Hear the whole Gospel and the Law thereto: — Speak truth, and in wise company abide; Slay lust, thine enemy; abandon pride; Patience and sweet forgiveness to thee woo; Set not in sin thy pleasure, but in God; Follow the path high feet before thee trod;
Give honour to the honourable; conceal Thy virtues with a pudent veil of shame, Yet cherish to the end a stainless fame; Speak sweetness to thy haters and their weal Pursue; show pity to unhappy men, Lift up the fallen, heal the sufferer’s pain.
Page – 345 The Altruist
How rare is he who for his fellows cares! His mind, speech, body all are as pure jars Full of his soul’s sweet nectar; so he goes Filling the world with rows on shining rows Of selfless actions ranked like the great stars.
He loves man so that he in others’ hearts Finding an atom even of noble parts Builds it into a mountain and thereon His soul grows radiant like a flower full-blown; Others are praised, his mind with pleasure starts.
Mountain Moloy
Legends of golden hills the fancy please, But though they were real silver and solid gold, Yet are the trees they foster only trees. Moloy shall have my vote with whom, ’tis told, Harbouring the linden, pine and basest thorn Ennobled turn to scent and earth adorn.
Page – 346 On Firmness
Gods
Cease never from the work thou hast begun Till thou accomplish; such the great gods be, Nor paused for gems unknown beneath the sun, Nor feared for the huge poisons of the sea, Then only ceased when nectar’s self was won. The Man of High Action Happiness is nothing, sorrow nothing. He Recks not of these whom his clear thoughts impel To action, whether little and miserably He fare on roots or softly dine and well, Whether bare ground receive his sleep or bed With smoothest pillows ease his pensive head, Whether in rags or heavenly robes he dwell.
Page – 347 Ornaments
What is an ornament? Courtesy in high place, Speech temperate in the hero, innocence In high philosophers, and wrathlessness In hermits, and in riches noble expense. Sincerity and honest meaning plain Save outward holiness, mercy the strong Adorns and modesty most learned men; One grace to every station can belong. Cause of all other gems, of all is blent Virtue, the universal ornament.
The Immutable Courage
If men praise thee, O man, ’tis well; nor ill, If they condemn. Let fortune curst or boon Enter thy doors or leave them as she will. Though death expect thee ere yon sinking moon Vanish or wait till unborn stars give light, The firm high soul remains immutable, Nor by one step will deviate from the right.
The Ball
Lo, as a ball that, by the player’s palm Smit downward, falls but to again rebound, So the high virtuous man hurled to the ground Bends not to fortune long his spirit calm.
Page – 348 Work and Idleness
Their bitterest enemy in their bodies pent Men cherish, idleness. Be in thy breast The tireless gust of work thy mighty guest, Man’s ceaseless helper, whose great aid once lent Thy strength shall fail not, nor thy head be bent.
The Self-Reliance of the Wise
The tree once pruned shall seek again the skies, The moon in heaven waning wax once more: Wise men grieve not nor vex their soul with sighs Though the world tread them down with savage roar; Knowing their strength, they husband it to rise.
Page – 349 <p align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left:0pt”> On Fate <p align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left:0pt”> Fate Masters the Gods Brihuspathy1 his path of vantage shows, The red disastrous thunder leaves his hand Obedient, the high Gods in burning rows His battled armies make, high heaven’s his fort, Iravath swings his huge trunk for his sport, The Almighty’s guardian favours over him stand; — That Indra with these strengths, this lordship proud Is broken by his foes in battle loud. Come then, bow down to Fate. Alas, the vain Heroisms, virtues, toils of glorious man! A Parable of Fate A serpent in a basket crushed despaired, His organs all with hunger weak and worn, While patiently at night the mouse prepared A hole in that self basket. Ere the morn By his own industry, such Nature’s law, The patient labourer fills the serpent’s maw. He with that food replenished, by the way The mouse had made, escaped. O world, behold The mighty master of thy sad decay And fortunate rising, Fate, the godhead old.
1 Brihuspathy is counsellor to Indra, the King of Heaven, and spiritual guide of the Gods. Iravath is Indra’s elephant.
Page – 350 Fate and Freewill
"The actions of our former life control This life’s sweet fruit or bitter; even the high Intellect follows where these point its eye." All this is true, — O yet, be wise of soul, Think ere thou act, thou who wouldst reach the goal. Ill Luck A bald man, goes the story, when the noon Beat his plagued brows into a fiery swoon, Desiring dimness and cool place was led By subtle Fate into a high palm’s shade. There where he shelter hoped, a giant fruit Crashed on his pate and broke with horrid bruit. Wherever the unfortunate hides his head, Grief and disaster in his footprints tread. Fate Masters All I saw the brilliant moon eclipsed, the sun Baulked darkly of his radiant pilgrimage, And halter-bound the forest’s mighty one, The iron-coiled huge python in a cage; Then saw the wise skilled brain a pauper, and said "Fate only is strong whose hand on all is laid."
Page – 351 The Follies of Fate
Sometimes the gods build up a very man Whom genius, virtue, glory crowd to bless, And Earth with him adorned grows measureless. Then if death early spoil that noble plan, Ah, blind stupidity of Fate that throws From her brow the jewel, from her breast the rose!
The Script of Fate
When on the desert-bramble’s boughs you find Leafage nor flower, blame not the bounteous Spring! Is it the sun’s fault if the owlet blind Sees not by day so radiant-bright a thing? Though down the rain-lark’s throat no sweet drops flow, Yet for his falling showers the high cloud praise. What Fate has written in power upon the brow, Where is the hand so mighty it shall rase?
Page – 352 On Karma1
Act ion be Man’s God
Whom shall men worship? The high Gods? But they Suffer fate’s masteries, enjoy and rue. Whom shall men worship? Fate’s stern godhead? Nay, Fate is no godhead. Many fruits or few Their actions bring to men, — that settled price She but deals out, a steward dumb, precise. Let action be man’s God, o’er whom even Fate Can rule not, nor his puissance abrogate.
The Might of Works
Bow ye to Karma who with puissant hand Like a vast potter all the universe planned, Shut the Creator in and bade him work In the dim-glinting womb and luminous murk; By whom impelled high Vishnu hurled to earth Travels his tenfold depths and whorls of birth; Who leading mighty Rudra by the hand Compels to wander strange from land to land, — A vagrant begging with a skull for bowl
1 There is a distinction, not always strictly observed, between Fate and Karma. Karma is the principle of Action in the universe with its stream of cause and infallible effect, and for man the sum of his past actions whose results reveal themselves not at once, but in the dispensation of Time, partly in this life, mostly in lives to come. Fate seems a more mysterious power imposing itself on men, despite all their will and endeavour, from outside them and above — daivam, a power from the Gods.
Page – 353 And suppliant palms, who is yet the world’s high Soul. Lo, through the skies for ever this great Sun Wheels circling round and round by Karma spun.
Karma
It is not beauty’s charm nor lineage high, It is not virtue, wisdom, industry, Service, nor careful arduous toil that can Bring forth the fruits of his desire to man; Old merit mind’s strong asceticism had stored Returns to him with blessing or a sword, His own past deeds that flower soon or late Each in its season on the tree of Fate.
Protection from behind the Veil
Safe is the man good deeds forgotten claim, In pathless deserts or in dangerous war Or by armed foes enringed; sea and fierce flame May threaten, death’s door waiting swing ajar; Slumbering or careless though his foemen find, Yea, though they seize him, though they smite or bind, On ocean wild or on the cliff’s edge sheer His deeds walk by his side and guard from fear; Through death and birth they bore him and are here.
Page – 354 The Strength of Simple Goodness
Toiler ascetic, who with passionate breath Swellest huge holinesses, — vain thy faith! Good act adore, the simple goddess plain, Who gives the fruit thou seekest with such pain. Her touch can turn the lewd man into a saint, Inimitably her quiet magic lent Change fools to sages and hidden mysteries show Beyond eye’s reach or brain’s attempt to know, Fierce enemies become friends and poisons ill Transform in a moment to nectar at her will.
Foresight and Violence
Good be the act or faulty, its result The wise man painfully forecasting first Then does; who in mere heedless force exult, Passionate and violent, taste a fruit accursed. The Fury keeps till death her baleful course And blights their life, tormenting with remorse.
Page – 355 Misuse of Life
This noble earth, this place for glorious deeds The ill-starred man who reaching nowise heeds, Nor turns his soul to energy austere, With little things content or idlesse drear, — He is like one who gets an emerald pot To bake him oil-cakes on a fire made hot With scented woods, or who with golden share For sorry birthwort ploughs a fertile fair Sweet soil, or cuts rich camphor piece by piece To make a hedge for fennel. Not for this In the high human form he walks great earth After much labour getting goodliest birth.
Fixed Fate Dive if thou wilt into the huge deep sea, The inaccessible far mountains climb, Vanquish thy foes in battle fierily, All arts and every science, prose and rhyme, Tillage and trade in one mind bring to dwell, — Yea, rise to highest effort, ways invent And like a bird the skies immeasurable Voyage; all this thou mayst, but not compel What was not to be, nor what was prevent.
Page – 356 Flowers from a Hidden Root
With store of noble deeds who here arrives, Finds on this earth his well-earned Paradise. The lonely forest grows his kingly town Of splendour, every man has friendly eyes Seeing him, or the wide earth for his crown Is mined with gems and with rich plenty thrives. This high fate is his meed of former lives.
Page – 357 Miscellaneous Verses
Definitions
What is clear profit? Meeting with good men. A malady? Of incompetent minds the spell. What is a loss? Occasion given in vain. True skill of life? With heavenward thoughts to dwell. A hero? The heart that is o’er passion lord. A mistress? She to loving service sworn. Best wealth? Wisdom. True happiness? The sward Of one’s own country, life where it was born. A kingdom? Swift obedience fruitful found At the low word from hearts of all around.
A Rarity
Rich in sweet loving words, in harshness poor, From blame of others’ lives averse, content With one dear wife and so heart-opulent, Candid and kindly, like an open door, Some here and there are found on teeming earth; Her fairest ornament is their quiet worth.
Page – 358 The Flame of the Soul
Insulted, wronged, oppressed the unshaken mind, Treasuring its strength, insurgent its high will, Towers always, though beat fiercely down to hell. The torch is to the inglorious soil declined, Its flame burns upward and unconquered still.
The Conqueror
That man whose soul bright beauty cannot pierce With love’s sweet burning javelins from her eyes, Nor sorrow torture his heart, nor passions fierce Miserably over his senses tyrannize, Conquers the world by his high-seated will, The man well-balanced, noble, wise and still.
The Hero’s Touch
Touched by one hero’s tread, how vibrating Earth starts as if sun-visited, ablaze, Vast, wonderful, young! Man’s colourless petty days Bloom suddenly and seem a grandiose thing.
Page – 359 The Power of Goodness The bloom of natural goodness like a flower Is Nature’s darling, all her creatures prize, And on whose body’s stock its fragrant power Blossoms, all fiercest things can humanise. For him red fire becomes like water pale and cool, For him heaven-threatening Ocean sinks into a pool Of quiet azure; for him the lion’s heart Tames its dire hungers to be like the hind’s, And the fell snake unsoothed by music’s art Upon his brows in floral wreaths he binds. Poisons for him to nectar change; impassable hills Droop, gentle slopes; strong blessings grow from ruthless ills.
Truth
Dear as his own sweet mother to the man Of truth his word is, dear as his heart’s blood. Truth, ’tis the mother of his soul’s great brood, High modesty and virtue’s lordly clan. Exceeding pure of heart as to a youth His mother, and like a mother to him cleaves This sweet proud goddess. Rather life he leaves And happiness puts away, not divine Truth. Others clasp some dear vice, gold, woman, wine; He keeps for Truth his passion fiery and fine.
Page – 360 Woman’s Heart
More hard the heart of woman is to seize Than an unreal mirrored face, more hard Her moods to follow than on mountains barred With rocks that skirt a dreadful precipice A dangerous luring pathway near the skies.
And transient is her frail exacting love Like dew that on some lotus’ petal lies. As with rich fatal shoots an upas-grove, Woman with faults is born, with faults she grows. Thorns are her nature, but her face the rose.
Fame’s Sufficiency
"Victory is his on earth or Paradise, The high heart slain in battle face to face." Let be your empire and your golden skies; For him enough that friends and foemen praise And with fame’s rumour in his ears he dies.
Magnanimity
The world teems miracles, breeds grandest things, But Rahu of all most marvellous and great Or the vast Boar on white tusks delicate Like buds who bears up Earth, else Chaos rings. Rahu, cleft, trunkless, deathless, passionate, Leaps on his foeman and can overbear, A miracle, then, greater miracle, spare.
Page – 362 Man Infinite
Earth is hemmed in with Ocean’s vaster moan; The world of waters flows not infinitely; A high unwearied traveller, the Sun Maps out the limits of the vaulted sky. On every creature born a seal is set With limits budded in, kept separate. Only man’s soul looks out with luminous eyes Upon the worlds illimitably wise.
The Proud Soul’s Choice
But one God to worship, hermit Shiv or puissant Vishnu high; But one friend to clasp, the first of men or proud Philosophy; But one home to live in, Earth’s imperial city or the wild; But one wife to kiss, Earth’s sweetest face or Nature, God’s own child. Either in your world the mightiest or my desert solitary.
The Waverer
Seven mountains, eight proud elephants, the Snake, The Tortoise help to bear this Earth on high, Yet is she troubled, yet her members shake! Symbol of minds impure, perplexed and wry. Though constant be the strife and claim, the goal Escapes the sin-driven and the doubting soul.
Page – 362 Gaster Anaides
Nay, is there any in this world who soon Comes not to heel, his mouth being filled with food? The inanimate tabour, lo, with flour well-glued Begins with sweeter voice its song to croon.
The Rarity of the Altruist
Low minds enough there are who only care To fill their lusts with pleasure, maws with food. Where shall we find him, the high soul and rare To whom the good of others is his good? First of the saints is he, first of the wise. The Red Mare of the Ocean drinks the seas Her own insatiable fire to feed; The cloud for greater ends exacts his need, The parching heats to cool, Earth’s pain to ease. Wealth’s sole good is to heal the unhappy’s sighs.
Page – 363 Statesman and Poet
How like are these whose labour does not cease, Statesman and poet, in their several cares; Anxious their task, no work of splendid ease! One ranges far for costly words, prepares Pure forms and violence popular disdains, The voice of rare assemblies strives to find, Slowly adds phrase to noble phrase and means Each line around the human heart to wind. The statesman seeks the nation’s wealth from far; Not to the easy way of violence prone He puts from him the brutal clang of war And seeks a better kind dominion, To please the just in their assemblies high, Slowly to build his careful steps between The noble lines of linked policy, — He shapes his acts a nation’s heart to win. Their burden and their toil make these two kin.
The Words of the Wise
Serve thou the wise and good, covet their speech Although to trivial daily things it keeps. Their casual thoughts are foam from solemn deeps; Their passing words make Scripture, Science; rich, Though seeming poor, their common actions teach.
Page – 364 Noblesse Oblige
If some day by some chance God thought this good And lilies were abolished from the earth, Would yet the swan like fowls of baser birth Scatter a stinking dunghill for his food?
The Roots of Enjoyment
That at thy door proud-necked the high-foaming steeds Prance spirited and stamp in pride the ground And the huge elephants stand, their temple’s bound Broken with rut, like slumbrous mountains round, — That in harmonious concert fluted reeds, The harp’s sweet moan, the tabour and the drum And conch-shell in their married moments come Waking at dawn in thy imperial dome, — Thy pride, thy riches, thy full-sated needs, That like a king of gods thou dwellst on earth, — From duties high-fulfilled these joys had birth; All pleasant things washes to men of worth The accumulated surge of righteous deeds.
Natural Qualities
Three things are faithful to their place decreed, — Its splendour as of blood in the lotus red, Kind actions, of the noble nature part, And in bad men a cold and cruel heart.
Page – 365 Death, not Vileness
Better to a dire verge by foemen borne, O man, thy perishable body dashed Upon some ragged beach by Ocean lashed, Hurled on the rocks with bleeding limbs and torn; Better thy hand on the dire cobra’s tooth Sharp-venomed or to anguish in the fire, Not at the baser bidding of desire Thy heart’s high virtue lost and natural truth.
Man’s Will
Renounce thy vain attempt, presumptuous man, Who thinkst and labourest long impossibly That the great heart for misery falter can: Fruitless thy hope that cruel fall to see. Dull soul! these are not petty transient hills, Himalay and Mahendra and the rest, Nor your poor oceans, their fixed course and wills That yield by the last cataclysm oppressed. Man’s will his shattered world can long survive: When all has perished, it can dare to live.
The Splendid Harlot
Victory’s a harlot full of glorious lust Who seeks the hero’s breast with wounds deep-scored, Hate’s passionate dints like love’s! So when the sword Has ploughed its field, leap there she feels she must.
Page – 366 Fate
Lo, the moon who gives to healing herbs their virtue, nectar’s home, Food immortalising, — every wise physician’s radiant Som,1 Even him consumption seizes in its cruel clinging arms. Then be ready! Fate takes all her toll and heeds not gifts nor charms.
The Transience of Worldly Rewards
Your gleaming palaces of brilliant stone, Your bright-limbed girls for grace and passion made, Your visible glory of dominion, Your sceptre and wide canopy displayed, These things you hold, but with what labour won Weaving with arduous toil a transient thread Of shining deeds on careful virtue spun! Which easily broken, all at once is sped; As when in lover’s amorous war undone A pearl-string, on all sides the bright pearls shed Collapse and vanish from the unremembering sun.
1 Soma, the moon, god of the immortalising nectar, the Vedic Soma-wine.
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