Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t5.41

c4.t5.41

Qualities and ideals essential on the part of a minister are, here and there, spoken out. A minister must above all be fertile in expedients (upāyakusalo).¹ Some of the practical precepts for a king, given in the Tesakuna Jātaka and already quoted by us in extenso while dealing with kingly duties,² may here be recalled, in so far as they appertain to the duties and qualities of ministers. The counsellors must be wise and such as would see the king's interests clearly (atthassa kovide), not given to riot and waste and free from gambling and drunkenness.³ A king hears slanders, without any base, about one of his ministers. He is perplexed how to find out whether a man is friend or foe. Then he is told by his Paṇḍitāmacca the sixteen signs by which a ‘bad intriguing minister could be easily distinguished from an honest one:’