Mahabharata 12.8.26

12.8.26

na ceddhartavyamanyasya kathaṃ taddharmamārabhet |
etāvāneva vedeṣu niścayaḥ kavibhiḥ kṛtaḥ || 26 ||

He that has wealth is regarded as a true man in the world. He that has wealth is regarded as a learned man. If a person who hath no wealth desires to achieve a particular purpose, he meets with failure. Wealth brings about accessions of wealth, like elephants capturing (wild) elephants. Religious acts, pleasures, joy, courage, wrath, learning, and sense of dignity, all these proceed from wealth, O king! From wealth one acquires family honour. From wealth, one's religious merit increases. He that is without wealth hath neither this world, nor the next, O best of men! The man that hath no wealth succeeds not in performing religious acts, for these latter spring from wealth, like rivers from a mountain. He that is lean in respect of (his possession of) steeds and kine and servants and guests, is truly lean and not he whose limbs alone are so. Judge truly, O king, and look at the conduct of the gods and the Danavas. O king, do the gods ever wish for anything else than the slaughter of their kinsmen (the Asuras)? If the appropriation of wealth belonging to others be not regarded as righteous, how, O monarch, will kings practise virtue on this earth? Learned men have, in the Vedas, laid down this conclusion. The learned have laid it down that kings should live, reciting every day the three Vedas, seeking to acquire wealth, and carefully performing sacrifices with the wealth thus acquired. The gods, through internecine quarrels, have obtained footing in heaven.