Tirukural

CHAPTER 56

Unjust Reign

551

More malicious than a professional murderer is the monarch who rules his people with injustice and oppression.§

552

A scepter-wielding king requesting a gift is like a lance-bearing robber demanding, “Give me all you have.”§

553

Day to day the king must seek out and punish unlawfulness, or day by day his country will plummet toward ruin.§

554

Without thinking, a king rules crookedly, and thus forfeits his subjects’ loyalty, together with his own fortune.§

555

Are not the tears of a people who cannot bear their monarch’s oppressive reign the force that erodes his prosperity?§

556

Ruling rightly, a monarch may long endure. Without that, his majesty is rightfully unenduring.§

557

As the Earth fares under a rainless sky, so do a people languish under an unkind king.§

558

Possessions hold less pleasure than poverty for oppressed subjects living under an unjust king.§

559

If the king acts contrary to justice, contrary seasons will befall the land and rain-laden clouds will fail to come forth.§

560

If the people’s protector fails to protect brahmins will forget the Vedas and cows’ milk will dry up.§