History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.114
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.114
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Kauṭilya (I. 6) emphasizes that control of the organs of sense is the cause of (proficiency in) vidyās and discipline should be attempted by giving up the six enemical tendencies viz. lust, hot temper, greed, vanity (*māna*), haughtiness or insolence (*mada*), overjoy. He says that (the whole purpose or insistence of) all śāstras is the restraint of the senses, that even a supreme ruler of the whole earth up to its four borders whose senses are not under control will at once perish and cites two examples on each of these six tendencies, viz. Dāṇḍakya Bhoja who attempted to rape a brāhmaṇa girl through lust and perished with his kingdom and kinsmen and Karāla king of Videha; Janamejaya (perished) who attacked brāhmaṇas through hot temper and Tālajaṅgha who did so against the Bhṛgus; Aila who exacted through greed excessive taxes from persons of the four varṇas and Ajabindu, the king of Sauvīra; Rāvaṇa who did not restore another's wife through his conceit and Duryodhana who did not give even a part from his kingdom; Dambhodbhava who despised all beings through his insolence and Arjuna of the Haihaya dynasty; Vātāpi through overjoy when he attacked Agastya and also the oligarchy of the Vṛṣṇis when they attacked Dvaipāyana⁶⁵. These six evil tendencies are called *śatru-ṣaḍ-varga* or *ari-ṣaḍvarga*. Kauṭilya adds that by the conquest of these six evil tendencies Jāmadagnya (Paraśurāma) and Ambarīṣa enjoyed the earth for a long time. Kām. (I. 55–58) and Śukra. I.
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144–146 give six of the twelve examples of Kauṭ. and Kām. I. 58 is the same as the last verse of Kauṭilya I. 6. Vide Mārkaṇḍeya 27. 12–13. In the Vāsavadattā of Subandhu (Hall's ed. pp. 273–276) there is a long list of the kings of antiquity (Purūravas, Nahuṣa, Yayāti, Sudyumna, Nala and nine others) who suffered owing to some failing or other in themselves. The Udyogaparva (74. 13–18) mentions by name 18 kings who by their evil career destroyed themselves, their friends and relatives (such as Mudāvarta of the Haihayas, Janamejaya of the Nīpas, Bahula of Tālajaṅghas, Dhautamūlaka of the Cīnas). This shows that Cīna does not probably stand for modern China in the epic. Manu VII. 44 (= Matsya 215. 55) also emphasizes the necessity for the king incessantly to curb the senses and not to fall a prey to vices arising from *kāma* and *krodha*. Manu (VII. 45–48) enumerates ten vicious tendencies due to *kāma* (desire for pleasures) viz. hunting, gambling, sleep by day, finding fault (with others), women, drunkenness, (excessive indulgence in) dancing, singing and instrumental music, and aimless wandering; and eight vicious tendencies due to krodha (hot temper) viz. tale-bearing, violence, treachery, envy, slander, (improper) seizure of property, reviling and assault. Manu further declares (VII. 50) that among the vices due to *kāma*, drinking wine, gambling, women and hunting are the most harmful, each preceding one being worse than each succeeding one and (VII.
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52) that among the vices due to hot temper, causing physical injury, reviling and deprivation of wealth are the worst. Manu (VII. 52) has a sly hit that these seven vices are more or less prevalent among kings (*sarvatraivānuṣaṅgiṇaḥ*) and therefore the only choice is that of the lesser or least of evils. Kauṭilya (VIII. 3) has a lengthy disquisition on the views of his predecessors about the relative harmfulness of the three vices due to hot temper and of the four due to *kāma* and states his own opinion that *arthadūṣaṇa* meaning loss of the means of livelihood by gifts, exactions (by the king), loss or abandonment of property is more harmful than reviling and daṇḍapāruṣya is more harmful than arthadūṣaṇa. He points out the benefits derived from hunting viz. exercise, the disappearance of phlegm, bile, fat and sweat, the acquisition of skill in aiming at stationary and moving bodies, the ascertainment of the minds of beasts when they are provoked and occasional travel.⁶⁶ These are echoed, almost in the same words by Kām. XIV. 25 and in the Śākuntala (II. 25) by Kālidāsa. Vide Sabhā 68. 20, Udyoga 33. 92 for the seven principal vices. Kām. (XIV. 6 and 7) enumerates the three vices of hot temper and the four of *kāma* and holds an elaborate discussion on their respective demerits. He defines arthadūṣaṇa (XIV. 17) somewhat differently (viz. as the abandoning of an important object or of great wealth in order to show that what really merits blame is not so).
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Vide the Viṣṇudharmottara II.65.12-15 for the two meanings of arthadūṣaṇa⁶⁷. Kām. does not agree that hunting has many good points in its favour and advises the king to prepare a separate well-guarded hunting ground of one-half *yojana* in length and breadth if he really desires to hunt (XIV. 28-42). The Mānasollāsa (vol. II) in the 15th chapter of the 4th viṁśati deals with hunting as a sport for kings and points out how a forest is to be preserved for royal hunting and how it is to be guarded and enumerates 31 methods of hunting. Kām. warns the king who wants to retain his kingdom against fondness for women (XIV. 57-58). He further says that a king may even indulge in fondness for women and may even drink moderately, but he must totally avoid gambling and hunting (XIV. 65). Kauṭilya regards gambling as the worst of the vices for a king (VIII. 3 last sentence in prose). In the Daśakumāracarita (VIII) there is an elaborate (but ironical) description of the mental and other benefits derived from the four principal vices due to *kāma*. Kām. I. 54 states that hunting, gambling and wine in the case of kings must be condemned, since calamities befell Pāṇḍu, Nala and the Vṛṣṇis (respectively) by being addicted to these. Even an ideal king like Rāma was fond of hunting. Śukra (I. 332-333) points out that hunting has much in its favour, but there is one great defect in it viz. slaughter of animals. Śukra (I.
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109-119) denounces gambling, drinking and fondness for women as the worst of vices and points out that Indra, Daṇḍakya, Nahuṣa and Rāvaṇa came to grief through their passion for women (I. 114) and that a king who is excessively fond of dancers, singers, courtesans, wrestlers, eunuchs and men of low birth falls an easy prey to his enemies (I. 128). Kām. (I. 40-46, which are almost the same as Śukra I. 102-107) gives a poetic description of how animals like the deer, the elephant, the moth, the fish and the bee meet death or become confined by extreme attachment to one only out of the five objects of sense and emphasizes that man who can and does enjoy all the pleasures of the five senses must practise great restraint.