Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Página 515

NITI SLOKAS
475
renounce all relatives who are only so nominally keep
nothing which does not belong to you and leave a guru
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who can do you no
good.
IV. If you undertake to do anything which you find to
be beyond your powers, give it up at once. If an individual
dishonours a whole class, he should be excommunicated
if a single inhabitant causes ruin to a whole village, he should
be expelled from it if a village causes the ruin of a district,
and if a district causes the ruin
it should be destroyed
of the soul, it must be abandoned \
V. In the afflictions, misfortunes, and tribulations of
life only he who actively helps us is our friend.
VI. Just as a plant of the forest becomes a friend of the
body when by virtue of its medicinal properties it cures
an illness which afflicts the body, however different the
one may be from the other similarly, he who renders us
services should be considered our friend, however lowly
may be his condition and however far he may be separated
from us whereas he who affects to be our friend should,
if he attempts to hurt us, be regarded as our enemy.
VII. One may render good service to the wicked, yet
whatever good one may do to them resembles characters
written in water, which are effaced as soon as they are
written
but services rendered to good people are like
characters engraved on stone, which are never effaced.
VIII. One should keep oneself five yards distant from
a carriage, ten yards from a horse, one hundred yards
from an elephant but the distance one should keep from
a wicked man cannot be measured.
IX. If one ask which is the more dangerous venom, that
of a wicked man or that of a serpent, the answer is, that
however subtle the poison of a serpent may be, it can at
any rate be counteracted by virtue of mantrams but it is
beyond all power to save a person from the venom of
a wicked man.
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1
The first sentence appears to form part of another sloka. The correct
If an individual dishonours a family, he may
rendering of this sloka is
be expelled from the family if a family dishonours a village, it may be
if a village dishonours a district, it may be
expelled from the village
if one's country is dangerous to one's personal safety, it
destroyed
may be abandoned. Ed.
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