History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.114.3

v4.c62.114.3

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).