Rajadharmanushasana Parva — The acts by which a king acquires blessed regions

Yudhishthira said No action O king, is more sinful than that of the Kshatriyas! While marching or in battle, the king destroys the Vaishyas.

By what acts then does the king acquire blessed regions? O foremost of Bharata's race, enlighten me on this, O learned one, I am as anxious to know.

Bhishma said By punishing the wicked, by winning over and maintaining the good, by sacrifices and gifts, kings become pure and cleansed.

It is true, kings, desirous of victory, torture many creatures, but after victory they secure the advancement of all,

By the power of gifts, sacrifices, and penances, they dissipate their sins, and their merit increases so that they may be able to do good to all creatures.

For reclaiming a field, the reclaimer takes up both paddy blades and weeds. His course, however, instead, of destroying the blades of paddy, he makes them grow more vigorously.

Those, who use weapons, destroy many who deserve to be killed. Such wholesale destruction, however, helps the growth and advancement of the remnant.

He who protects people from plunder, destruction, and affliction, he, for thus saving their lives from robbers, is regarded as the giver of wealth, of life, and of food.

Therefore, by thus worshipping the gods by means of a union of all sacrifices whose Dakshina is the removing of every body's fear, the king enjoys every king of happiness here and lives with Indra in heaven hereafter.

That king, who, going out, fights his enemies in battles that have arisen for the sake of Brahmanas, and sacrifices his life, is regarded as the embodiment of a sacrifice with endless presents.

If a king, with his quivers full of arrows, shoots them fearlessly at his enemies, the very gods do not see any one superior to his on Earth.

In such a case, regions eternal and capable of granting every desire proportionate to the number of arrows he discharges for wounding the enemies, await him.

The blood that flows from his body purges him off of all his sins along with the very pain that he feels then.

Persons well read in the scriptures say that the pains a Kshatriya suffers in battle act as penances for increasing his merit.

Righteous persons, stricken with fear, stay in the rear, begging for life from heroes that have rushed to battle, even as men pray for rain from the clouds.

Without allowing the solicitors to incur the dangers of battle, if those heroes place them in the rear by themselves facing those dangers and defend them at that time of fear, they acquire great merit.

And, if appreciating that act of bravery, those timid persons always respect those defenders, they do simply what is proper and just. By acting otherwise they cannot overcome fear.

There is really a great difference between men who seem outwardly equal. Some rush to battle, arnid its dreadful din, against armed enemies.

Indeed, it is the hero who only rushes against crowds of enemies, that leads him to the road to heaven. The coward, on the contrary, stricken with fear, seeks safety in flight, leaving behind his comrades in danger.

Let not such wretches of men be born in your family! The very gods headed by Indra send calamities to them who leave behind their comrades in battle and come home unscathed and uninjured. He who desires to save his own life by leaving behind his comrades, should be killed with sticks or stones or rolled in a mat of dry grass for being burnt to death. The Kshatriyas who would be guilty of slich conduct should be slain like animals.

Quiet death on a bed, after throwing out phlegm and urine and uttering piteous cries, is sinful for a Kshatriya.

Persons well-read in the scriptures do not praise the death of a Kshatriya with unwounded body.

The death of a Kshatriya at home is not praiseworthy. They are heroes. Any unheroic act on their part is sinful and censurable.

In disease, people hear one crying,-What। sorrow! How painful! I must be a great sinner! : With face emaciated and bad smell coming out of his body and clothes, the sick man drowns his relatives into grief.

Hankering after the condition of healthy men, such a man again and again desires for death itself. A hero, having dignity and pride, does not deserve such an inglorious death.

Surrounded by kinsmen and killing his enemies in battle, a Kshatriya should die at the edge of keen weapons.

Actuated by lustful desire and filled with rage, a hero fights furiously and does not feel the wounds inflicted on his person by enemies.

Meeting with death in battle, he acquires great merit, fame and the respect of the world which belongs to his order and in the end lives with Indra in heaven.

The hero, by not retreating from battle and fighting by every means in his power, careless of life itself, at the van of battle, lives with Indra.

Wherever the hero has met with death in the inidst of enemies without showing ignoble fear or cheerlessness, he has succeeded in acquiring blessed regions hereafter.