spouses and their own selves and treasuries and friends and stores.  In these respects the king is not different from other men.—­The country is ruined,—­the city is consumed by fire,—­the foremost of elephants is dead,—­at all this the king yields to grief like others, little regarding that these impressions are all due to ignorance and error.  The king is seldom freed from mental griefs caused by desire and aversion and fear.  He is generally afflicted also by headaches and diverse diseases of the kind.  The king is afflicted (like others) by all couples of opposites (as pleasure and pain, etc).  He is alarmed at everything.  Indeed, full of foes and impediments as kingdom is, the king, while he enjoys it, passes nights of sleeplessness.  Sovereignty, therefore, is blessed with an exceedingly small share of happiness.  The misery with which it is endued is very great.  It is as unsubstantial as burning flames fed by straw or the bubbles of froth seen on the surface of water.  Who is there that would like to obtain sovereignty, or having acquired sovereignty can hope to win tranquillity?  Thou regardest this kingdom and this palace to be thine.  Thou thinkest also this army, this treasury, and these counsellers to belong to thee.  Whose, however, in reality are they, and whose are they not?  Allies, ministers, capital, provinces, punishment, treasury, and the king, these seven which constitute the limbs of a kingdom exist, depending upon one another, like three sticks standing with one another’s support.  The merits of each are set off by the merits of the others.  Which of them can be said to be superior to the rest?  At those times those particular ones are regarded as distinguished above the rest when some important end is served through their agency.  Superiority, for the time being, is said to attach to that one whose efficacy is thus seen.  The seven limbs already mentioned, O best of kings, and the three others, forming an aggregate of ten, supporting one another, are said to enjoy the kingdom like the king himself.[1705] That king who is endued with great energy and who is firmly attached to Kshatriya practices, should be satisfied with only a tenth part of the produce of the subject’s field.  Other kings are seen to be satisfied with less than a tenth part of such produce.  There is no one who owns the kingly office without some one else owning it in the world, and there is no kingdom without a king.[1706] If there be no kingdom, there can be no righteousness, and if there be no righteousness, whence can Emancipation arise?  Whatever merit is most sacred and the highest, belongs to kings and kingdoms.[1707] By ruling a kingdom well, a king earns the merit that attaches to a Horse-sacrifice with the whole Earth given away as Dakshina.  But how many kings are there that rule their kingdoms well?  O ruler of Mithila, I can mention hundreds and thousands of faults like these that attach to kings and kingdoms.  Then, again, when I have no real connection with even my body, how then can