King's Codes III

Soldiers are praised thanks to war;

Rice is cultivated thanks to water;

Soldiers on the march depend on rice;

A pupil becomes educated because his tutor

Criticizes him and chastises him;

Soldiers are superior because their leader

Goes to great lengths to train them.  

In studying various problems, one must think well:

Even adults with good behavior

Are still subjected to distraction;

A good man can become wicked;

A modest man can become grand;

He, of noble lineage,

Can be confused with those of low born.

Sometime you might mistake a horse for a donkey,

A goose for a duck,

A winged bean for a liana,

Lead for silver,

Engraved copper for gold,

Pankuoy for jas*

And a cotton tree for a kapok*.

That is why it is worth thinking,

To reason, to smell the air

To identify the flavor, the fragrance

Good or bad,

Delectable and exciting.

You must take the scents of things

Before you fully enjoy them.

When you read good words,

You should strive to learn more about the author,

And his family and ascendants,

Seek to discover the reason,

Whether good or bad,

After which, you can judge these words

And determine their value.  

A blind man tries to protect his sight with leather patches,

Or a case of a bald man

Who would like oil for his hair,

Or that of a deaf man who listens to songs

By striking his pace with enthusiasm,

That of a paralytic, moving painfully

In sampot chang kben*, attempts to run.

There are three kinds of treacherous behavior.

First is of an elephant

Which is quite ferocious,

But you manage to domesticate.

Under the pressure of the hook,

You rush in pursuit of the herd leader

With six cubits long.

The second is that of a malevolent man

Who is filled with bitterness and pretenses,

Who does not follow the right path,

Nor the words of his seniors,

Who muddles his speech

Without thinking about the perils,

And exposes himself to imminent destruction.

The third is that of a courtesan

Who practices continence,

By holding her beautiful speeches,

These three phenomena

Are examples of dangerous perfidy.

All of you, you good people,

Do not conform to them.

An intelligent man can be defeated by deceitful;

The one who serves his master with veneration

Can be the favorite;

The one who has qualities, the one

Who is lucky;

The one who tries to study the law,

By the one who has a good heart.

A high-ranking man is not worth the one who has the glory;

Whoever has property

Is not worth whoever has power.

It is better to lose fortune

Than to infringe the higher authority,

It is better to contract a disease

Than to be an object of contempt.  

It is better to ask than to take;

Among equal people, do not try to

Differentiate between servants and masters;

It is better to endure an injustice

Than to sound it off.

All problems and troubles,

Do not allow them to spread.

This dharma serves as a prescription

That will protect and defend sentient beings,

And will ensure their success.

It is better to lose one’s fortune

Than to perish oneself;

But it is better to perish

Than to lose the essence of the dharma.

Your parents recommend you,

The sages, one after another, teach you

That the boat follows the shore,

That the junk goes in the direction of the wind.

But the rudder, used to guide

The pennant of the ring in the right position,

And the compass are of prime importance.

Stanzas 16-29 of Chbab Rajaneti (Moral Codes of Conduct: King’s Neti)

by King Sri Dharmaraja II (1628-1630)

For part one and two go here and here