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THE UNIVERSAL KING tention shall be paid to the treasury. ... There are about forty ways of embezzlement. [These are described in detail.] Just as it is impossible not to taste honey or poison when it is on the tip of the tongue, so is it impossible for a government servant not to eat up at least a bit of the king's revenue. Just as fish moving under water cannot possibly be detected either as drinking or as not drinking water, so government servants employed in their government work cannot be found out while taking money.
"It is possible to mark the movements of birds flying high in the sky, but it is not equally possible to ascertain the movement of government servants of hidden purpose." 42
The Universal King
THE BLANK pessimism of the Indian philosophy of politics, untouched as it is by any hope or ideal of progress and improvement, harmonizes with the Indian view of time (kāla), as also with the early and medieval Christian notions of the corrupt character of the "world." Indian ethics (dharma) recognize that the rule of the fish must be outlawed as far as possible within human society; indeed, within each unit of society it is absolutely outlawed-that is to say, within the province of each king. ** Ideally, the science of government, as reviewed in the
12 Arthasāstra 2. 8. 65, 66, 69; transl., pp. 73, 75, 79-80.
48 "The king should always bear himself toward his subjects as a mother toward the child of her womb. As the mother, disregarding those objects that are most cherished by her, secks the good of her child alone, cven so should kings conduct themselves" (Mahabharata 12. 56. 44-45).
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