1. The whole world is filled with delight to the poor man, to the man whose passions are subdued, to the man who is calm, and whose mind is ever equal, who is filled with contentment.
2. Final emancipation–death–is approaching, but yet no thought is bestowed upon these things. The various states of life have been passed through: calamity–happiness–falls–dangers–these have been endured. What more shall we say? Alas! what injury have you not inflicted on yourself over and over again!
3. The belly is a pot difficult to fill: it scorches up a man’s virtue, even as the moon scorches up the beds of lotuses: it is like a thief that steals one’s purse : it is even as a flashing axe cutting down the tree of virtue.
4. Let us eat the food we have gained by begging: let the sky be our only garment: let the earth be our couch: why should we be a slave to harsh masters?
5. “O my friend! rise up, endure the heavy weight of poverty: let me, overcome with weariness, enjoy at length the rest which thou hast gained in death.” Thus was the corpse on the way to the burying-ground addressed by the man who had lost his wealth. The corpse remained in silence, knowing that death is better than poverty.
6. Vide Nîti Śataka, Miscellaneous, śloka 4.
7. Vide Nîti Śataka, Miscellaneous, śloka 6.
8. Hara, who rejoices because his beloved spouse is half of his own being, shines resplendent in those who are given over to passion: the same deity, who has no superiors, manifested in his absence of union with his wife, rules in those who are freed from passion. He who is filled with confusion through the various snake-poisoned arrows of love, hard to be endured, cheated by Kâma, can neither abandon nor enjoy objects of sense.
9. At one time women laugh, at another they weep; so they make men trust in them, though they themselves are full of falsehood. The understanding man therefore avoids women as he would a vessel used in a burying-place.
10. When we pass our life at Benares, on the banks of the divine river, clothed in a single garment, and with our hands uplifted to our head, in supplication exclaim, “O Spouse of Gaurî, Tripurahara, Śambhu, Trinayana, be propitious to us!” in the midst of our supplications the days pass by as if in a moment.
11. A firm swelling bosom, twinkling eyes, a small mouth, curling hair, slowness of speech, and rounded hips are praised in a woman; timidity, too, is always commended in the heart of a woman one loves, and the cunning devices which she practises towards her lover: those fawneyed damsels who have all these collected faults should be dear only to the beasts.
12. Sometimes there is music and song, sometimes lamentations; sometimes we may listen to the conversation of the wise, sometimes only the disputes of drunken men; sometimes we may enjoy all pleasures, sometimes our bodies may be running over with disease: so the life of man is made up partly of ambrosia, partly of poison.
13. You, as you pay flattery to your rich patrons with your voice and limbs disguised, are, as it were, the actors in a comedy. What kind of a part will you play in time when your hair is grey with age?
14. * * * * * * * *
15. Fortune is fleeting, breath is fleeting, youth is fleeting; the only thing immovable in the world is righteousness.
16. May Hara, whose forehead is ornamented by the crescent moon like a tongue of flame, who consumed the god of love flitting around him like a moth, manifesting himself in the height of the state of happiness, who removes the mighty weight of darkness which overwhelms the earth, the torch of light in the innermost mind of the ascetic,–may he, Hara, be victorious!
17. O my mind! do not in thy solicitude think upon the goddess of fortune; for she is as uncertain as a courtesan, delighting to sport in the frown or smile of princes. Rather clothe thyself with rags, and entering Benares, beg from door to door the food which men will place in the vessels which you offer.
18. The tortoise, whose back is wearied with the burden of the mighty world which he bears, has been indeed born to good purpose; the birth of the Pole Star is glorious too, for the splendid orb of the universe is fixed upon him; all other beings that have come into being are as though dead, for their wings are useless in doing good to others; they are neither above nor below, but are even as gnats, buzzing about in the fig-tree of this world.
19. “My house is magnificent, my sons are respected by the good, my wealth is infinite, my wife is beautiful, my life is in its prime.” Thus speaks the man whose mind is obscured through ignorance. The wise man, on the contrary, knowing that everything in the prison-house of this world is transitory, casts aside all earthly possessions.
20. Those who are full of curses may curse; we are righteous, and, because we are devoid of evil, we cannot pour forth abusive words. That only can be given which is in the world; it would not be possible to give a hare’s horn to any one.
21. Vide Nîti Śataka, Miscellaneous, śloka 10.
22. Subsistence can be easily gained in this world in the path of delights. The earth is full of fruit; elephant or deer-skin will provide clothing; the same consequences result from happiness or unhappiness. Who then, casting off the three-eyed deity, would reverence one blinded by the love of a little money?
23. We have slain elephants by the sword, we have tortured our enemies, we have playfully sported on the couch of our beloved, we have lived within the roaring sound of the falls on the Himâlayas, but yet we have had no pleasure. Like the crows, we have passed our lives in eager desire after morsels of food given to us by others.
24. Where, O my mind! dost thou wander? Rest for a time! Since that which has been ordained cannot come to pass in any other way, think not of the past, care nothing for the future; enjoy only those pleasures which come and go without being looked for.
25. Use thy hand as a drinking vessel; eat in peace the food thou hast gained by begging with pure mind; take up thy seat in any place thou canst, looking on the whole world but as grass. It is only a few, before they have cast off their earthly forms, who have attained to the knowledge of the unbroken and exceeding happiness which the ascetic feels, a bliss easily gained through the favour of Śiva.
26. Balî has not been released by you from Pâtâla: you have not brought destruction to death: the dark spot has not been cleared from the moon, nor has sickness been removed from men. You have not borne up the world for a moment, and so relieved the weariness of Śesha. O my mind! art thou not ashamed wrongfully to bear the honour belonging only to noble heroes.
27. My mind desires to attain to union with Śiva, for through union with him all that restlessness arising from the discussion as to the meaning of the different Śastras is allayed; the emotions, stirred up by poetry with its various sentiments, are made to cease; the multitude of doubts is entirely swept away.
28. You may take the fruits of the earth at your will; in every wood there is no lack of trees; in every place there is water, sweet and cool, of the sacred streams; there is a soft couch strewn for you, made up of the shoots of the delicate creepers. Why then do wretched men suffer such miseries, waiting at the doors of the rich?
29. You may have enjoyed a meal of good food: what then? or you may have eaten coarse food at the close of the day: what then? Your raiment may be ragged and torn, or ample and magnificent: what then? You may have but one servant, or an endless number: what then? You may have but one elephant, or you may be encircled by thousands of horses and elephants : what then?
30. I can gain food by begging; the cow of plenty supplies me with milk; my rags keep off the cold; I worship Śiva unceasingly. What care I for possessions?
31. The great ascetics declare that a life passed as a mendicant is not miserable; for the mendicant has no fear of loss; he has no envy, pride, or arrogance; he is free from the mass of evils which beset mankind; he gains his food day by day without difficulty. The mendicant life is a means of purification beloved by the gods; it lays up treasure that will last for ever; it increases devotion to Śiva.
32. The mendicant who has the earth for his couch, the sky as his canopy, the moon as his lamp, rejoicing in the union which he has attained with peace, fanned by the winds of heaven which blow from all quarters, is even as a prince, although he has cast off all desire for earthly possessions.
33. Pleasures are as fleeting as the changing ripples of the mighty river: life flees away in a moment; our days are few; the joys of youth pass away; the love of one’s friends fails. Let the wise man, therefore, who knows that all this world is vain, and whose mind truly perceives the evil of worldly attractions, direct his efforts towards indifference.
34. Thou dost not regard the face of the rich; thou dost not speak flattering words; thou dost not listen to the utterances of pride; thou dost not go here and there for the hope of profit; but thou eatest in their season the fresh shoots of grass, and sleepest peacefully at the time of sleep. Tell me, I pray thee, O deer, what penance hast thou practised?
35. Vide Nîti Śataka, Miscellaneous, śloka 15.
36. Vide Nîti Śataka, śloka 2.
37. Vide Nîti Śataka, Miscellaneous, śloka 16.
38. Women who are young avoid the man whose head is grey with age and the man who is enfeebled by years. They flee far from him, avoiding him like the well frequented by Chaṇḍâlas, which has a piece of bone hanging over it.
39. How often are thy enterprises destroyed! how often, O senseless man! hast thou not desired, filled as thou art with folly, to drink water from the vain mirage of this world! Since thy confidence is not abated, and since thy mind, though torn, is not subdued, surely thy heart must be made of adamantine rock.
40. The eyes of a woman will softly enter a man’s heart and fill it with infatuation, with intoxication, with deception, with menaces, with delights. What will not the eyes of a woman accomplish?
41. The mighty lion, which eats the flesh of boars and elephants, enjoys love but once in a year; the dove, picking up only pieces of hard rock, is a lover every day. Tell me what is the reason for this?
42. A dwelling in a sacred forest, with the deer alone as companions; a life nourished on the fruits of the earth on the banks of every stream, the flat rock surface for a couch: such is the life of peaceful calm that the ascetic lives who desires contact with Hara; his mind is fixed upon one object; the forest or the dwelling are the same to him.
43. The goddess pours forth words of sweet sound, more pleasing than honey or butter: at the utterances of her ambrosial body we are filled with delight. As long as we can gain barley grain by begging, so long we will not desire to amass wealth gained in a state of slavery.