ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION OF A COUNTRY

SRIMAD MAHABHARATA - SABHA PARVA - LOKAPALA SABHAKHAYANA (UPA) PARVA - CHAPTER 5(D) - ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION OF A COUNTRY

“(Deva Rishi) Narada continued, ‘O persecutor of all enemies (Yudhishthira), do you give gems and jewels, to the principal officers of enemy, as they deserve, without your enemy’s knowledge (meaning do you corrupt enemy country’s principle officers)?

“O Paartha (Yudhishthira), do you seek to conquer your enraged enemies that are slaves to their passions, having first conquered your own soul and obtained the mastery over your own senses?

“Before you march out against your enemies, do you properly employ the four arts of reunion, gift (of wealth), producing disunion, and application of force?

“O monarch (Yudhishthira), do you go out against your enemies, having first strengthened your own kingdom?

“Having gone out against them, do you exert to the utmost to obtain victory over them?

“Having conquered them, do you seek to protect them with care?

“Are your army consisting of four kinds of forces – the regular troops, the allies, the mercenaries, and the irregulars – each furnished with the eight ingredients – chariots, elephants, horses, offices, infantry, camp-followers, spies possessing a thorough knowledge of the country, and flags led out against your enemies after having been well trained by superior officers?

“O oppressor of all enemies (Yudhishthira), O great king, I hope you slay your enemies without regarding their seasons of reaping and of famine.

“O king (Yudhishthira), I hope your servants and agents in your own kingdom and in the kingdoms of your enemies continue to look after their respective duties and to protect one another.

“O monarch (Yudhishthira), I hope trusted servants have been employed by you to look after your food, the garments you wear and the perfumes you use.

“I hope, O king (Yudhishthira), your treasury, shelters, stables, arsenals, and women’s apartments, are all protected by servants devoted to you and ever seeking your welfare.

“I hope, O monarch (Yudhishthira), you protect first yourself from your domestic and public servants, then from those servants of your relatives and from one another.

“Do your servants, O king (Yudhishthira), ever speak to you in the forenoon regarding your extravagant expenditure in respect of your drinks, sports, and women?

“Is your expenditure always covered by one-fourth, one-third or one-half of your income?

“Do you always cherish your relatives, superiors, merchants, the aged, other followers, and the distressed, with food and wealth?

“Do the accountants and clerks employed by you in looking after your income and expenditure, always evaluate you every day in the forenoon of your income and expenditure?

“Do you dismiss without fault servants accomplished in business, popular and devoted to your welfare?

“O Bharata (Yudhishthira), do you employ superior, indifferent, and low men, after examining them well in offices they deserve?

“O monarch (Yudhishthira), do you employ in your business, persons that are thievish or open to temptation, or hostile, or minors?

“Do you persecute your kingdom by the help of thievish or greedy men, or minors, or women?

“Are the agriculturists in your kingdom contented?

“Are large tanks and lakes constructed all over your kingdom at proper distances, without agriculture being in your realm entirely dependent on the showers of heaven?

“Are the agriculturists in your kingdom are in want of either seed or food?

“Do you grant with kindness, loans (of seed-grains) to the tillers, taking only one-fourth in excess of every measure by the hundred (meaning the interest rate for a loan is 25% on the excess of produce not on the principal amount)?

“O child (Yudhishthira), are the four professions of agriculture, trade, cattle-rearing, and lending at interest, carried on by honest men?

“Upon these, O monarch (Yudhishthira), depends the happiness of your people.

“O king (Yudhishthira), do the five brave and wise men, employed in the five offices of protecting the city, the citadel, the merchants, and the agriculturists, and punishing the criminals, always benefit your kingdom by working in union with one another?

“For the protection of your city, have the villages been made like towns, the hamlets and outskirts of villages like villages?

“Are all these entirely under your supervision and rule?

“Are thieves and robbers that sack your town pursued by your police over the even and uneven parts of your kingdom?

“Do you console women and are they protected in your realm? I hope you have not placed any confidence in them (women), nor divulge any secret before any of them?

“O monarch (Yudhishthira), having heard of any danger and having thought on it also, do you lie in the inner apartments enjoying every agreeable object?

“Having slept during the second and the third divisions of the night, do you think of Dharma and Arthaa in the fourth division wakefully (One division of a day or night is known as Yaama in Sanskrit; One Yaama equals one-fourth of day or night; In total, there are eight Yaamas in a day).

“O Paandavaa (Yudhishthira), rising from bed at the proper time and dressing yourself well, do you show yourself to your people, accompanied by ministers knowledgeable with the auspiciousness or otherwise of moments?

“O represser of all enemies (Yudhishthira), do men dressed in red, armed with swords and adorned with ornaments stand by your side to protect your person?

“O monarch (Yudhishthira)! Do you behave like Dharmadeva himself to those that deserve punishment and those that deserve worship, to those that are dear to you and those that you like not?

“O Paarthaa (Yudhishthira), do you seek to cure bodily diseases by medicines and fasts, and mental illness with the advice of the aged?

“I hope that the physicians engaged in looking after your health are well knowledgeable with the eight kinds of treatment and are all attached and devoted to you.

“O monarch, has it ever happened that from greed or foolishness or pride, you failed to decide between the plaintiff (a person who brings a case against another) and the defendant (an individual sued or accused) who have come to you?

“Do you deprive, through greed or foolishness, of their pensions the followers who have sought your shelter from trustfulness or love?

“Do the people that inhabit your realm, bought (corrupted) by your enemies, ever seek to raise disputes with you, uniting themselves with one another? Are those among your enemies that are weak always repressed by the help of troops that are strong, by the help of both counsels and troops?

“Are all the principal chieftains (of your empire) all devoted to you? Are they ready to lay down their lives for your sake, commanded by you?