Kural 551
More malicious than a professional murderer is the monarch
who rules his people with injustice and oppression.
Kural 552
A scepter-wielding king requesting a gift is like
a lance-bearing robber demanding, ”Give me all you have.”
Kural 553
Day to day the king must seek out and punish unlawfulness,
or day by day his country will plummet toward ruin.
Kural 554
Without thinking, a king rules crookedly, and thus
forfeits his subjects’ loyalty, together with his own fortune.
Kural 555
Are not the tears of a people who cannot bear their monarch’s
oppressive reign the force that erodes his prosperity?
Kural 556
Ruling rightly, a monarch may long endure.
Without that, his majesty is rightfully unenduring.
Kural 557
As the Earth fares under a rainless sky,
so do a people languish under an unkind king.
Kural 558
Possessions hold less pleasure than poverty
for oppressed subjects living under an unjust king.
Kural 559
If the king acts contrary to justice, contrary seasons will befall
the land and rain-laden clouds will fail to come forth.
Kural 560
If the people’s protector fails to protect
brahmins will forget the Vedas and cows’ milk will dry up.