glean wisdom from everywhere as they collect insects even from the forest.  A wise and peacock-like king should thus rule his kingdom and adopt a policy which is beneficial to him.  By exercising his own intelligence, he should settle what he is to do.  By consulting with others he should either abandon or confirm such resolution.  Aided by that intelligence which is sharpened by the scriptures, one can settle his courses of action.  In this consists the usefulness of the scriptures.  By practising the arts of conciliation, he should inspire confidence in the hearts of his enemies.  He should display his own strength.  By judging of different courses of action in his own mind he should, by exercising his own intelligence, arrive at conclusions.  The king should be well-versed in the arts of conciliatory policy, he should be possessed of wisdom; and should be able to do what should be done and avoid what should not.  A person of wisdom and deep intelligence does not stand in need of counsels or instruction.  A wise man who is possessed of intelligence like Vrihaspati, if he incurs obloquy, goon regains his disposition like heated iron dipped in water.  A king should accomplish all objects, of his own or of others, according to the means laid down in the scriptures.  A king conversant with the ways of acquiring wealth should always employ in his acts such men as are mild indisposition, possessed of wisdom and courage and great strength.  Beholding his servants employed in acts for which each is fit, the king should act in conformity with all of them like the strings of a musical instrument, stretched to proper tension, according with their intended notes.  The king should do good to all persons without transgressing the dictates of righteousness.  That king stands immovable as a hill whom everybody regards—­’He is mine.’  Having set himself to the task of adjudicating between litigants, the king, without making any difference between persons that are liked and those that are disliked by him, should uphold justice.  The king should appoint in all his offices such men as are conversant with the characteristics of particular families, of the masses of the people, and of different countries; as are mild in speech; as are of middle age; as have no faults; as are devoted to good act; as are never heedless; as are free from rapacity; as are possessed of learning and self-restraint; as are firm in virtue and always prepared to uphold the interests of both virtue and profit.  In this way, having ascertained the course of actions and their final objects the king should accomplish them heedfully; and instructed in all matters by his spies, he may live in cheerfulness.  The king who never gives way to wrath and joy without sufficient cause, who supervises all his acts himself, and who looks after his income and expenditure with his own eyes, succeeds in obtaining great wealth from the earth.  That king is said to be conversant with the duties of king-craft who rewards his officers