Markandeyapurana 27.3.p1

27.3.p1

madālasovāca

Madālasā spoke:
“My child, a king inaugurated in his kingdom must in the first place conciliate his subjects, without obstructing his own duty. Eschewing the seven vices, which are radically injurious, he must guard himself from his adversaries without departing from good counsel. Just as a man meets destruction in eight ways from a fine-wheeled chariot, so undoubtedly does even a king without departing from good counsel. And let him recognise the had and good ministers through his enemies’ faults; and he must strenuously trace out his enemy’s spies by spies. But a king must not confide in friends, acquaintances, or relatives; let a king trust even in an unfriendly person, if so obliged by his affairs. A king must himself be conversant with the stationary, prosperous and deteriorating conditions of state policy, be familiar with the merits of the six measures of military policy,[1] and not be enslaved by desire.

Jaḍa spoke:
Now being talked to in this way by his mother every day, the child Alarka grew in age and intelligence. Then this son of Ṛtadhvaja, on reaching boyhood, received investiture with the sacred thread, and being intelligent did obeisance to his mother and said, “What I ought to do now for happiness in this world and the next world, tell all that to me who am bowing respectfully before thee?”