smallest benefit.  For these reasons.. the king should act with mildness in taking wealth from his subjects.  If a king continually oppresses his people, he meets with extinction like a flash of lightening that blazes forth only for a second.  Learning, penances, vast wealth, indeed, everything, can be earned by exertion.  Exertion, as it occurs in embodied creatures, is governed by intelligence.  Exertion, therefore, should be regarded as the foremost of all things.  The human body is the residence of many intelligent creatures of great energy, of Sakra, of Vishnu, of Saraswati, and of other beings.  A man of knowledge, therefore, should never disregard the body.[359] A covetous man should be subjugated by constant gifts.  He that is covetous is never satiated with appropriating other people’s wealth.  Every one, however, becomes covetous in the matter of enjoying happiness.  If a person, therefore, becomes destitute of wealth, he becomes destitute of virtue and pleasure (which are objects attainable by wealth).  A covetous man seeks to appropriate the wealth, the enjoyments, the sons and daughters, and the affluence of others.  In covetous men every kind of fault may be seen.  The king, therefore, should never take a covetous man for his minister or officer.  A king (in the absence of proper agents) should despatch even a low person for ascertaining the disposition and acts of foes.  A ruler possessed of wisdom should frustrate all the endeavours and objects of his enemies.  That trustful and high-born king who seeks instruction from learned and virtuous Brahmanas and who is protected by his ministers, succeeds in keeping all his tributary chiefs under proper control.  O prince of men, I have briefly discoursed to thee of all the duties laid down in the scriptures.  Attend to them, aided by thy intelligence.  That king who, in obedience to his preceptor, attends to these, succeeds in ruling the whole earth.  That king who disregards the happiness that is derivable from policy and seeks for that which chance may bring, never succeeds in enjoying the happiness that attaches to sovereignty or in winning regions of bliss hereafter.[360] A king that is heedful, by properly attending to the requirements of war and peace, succeeds in slaying even such foes as are eminent for wealth, worshipped for intelligence and good conduct, possessed of accomplishments, brave in battle, and ready for exertion.  The king should discover those means which are furnished by different kinds of acts and measures.  He should never depend upon destiny.  One that sees faults in faultless persons never succeeds in winning prosperity and fame.  When two friends engage in accomplishing one and the same act, a wise man always applauds him among the two that takes upon himself the heavier share of the work.  Do thou practise these duties of kings that I have told thee.  Set thy heart upon the duty of protecting men.  Thou mayst then easily obtain the reward of virtue.  All the regions of felicity hereafter are dependent upon merit!’"[361]