The 100th chapter of Ayodhya Kanda lays out the duties of a king which Rama hopes is being followed by Bharata. The dictate constitutes the rules by which Rama lives by and spoken by Rama himself to Bharata. There is an ideal kingdom ‘Rama Rajya’ which is vastly referred from Indian mythology by most of the Indians. This Rama Rajya or the kingdom by Rama does not anywhere mention the constituents or components which make it noble and ideal. This particular chapter throws some light by guiding Bharata to become a wise king, educated by Rama about the intricacies to rule Ayodhya and become the best ruler one can be. This dharma of a noble king is universally applicable to every state, relevant to every ruler and spread across past, present and future.
After refusing to return to Ayodhya, Rama enquires about the rule in his kingdom and poses these 56 questions to Bharata which are penned in the 76 slokas of the Kaschit Sarga or 100th chapter in Ayodhya Kanda. Most of the slokas begin with the word ‘Kaschit’ which means I trust or I hope and hence the chapter posing these 56 questions was named as Kaschit sarga. We can look at all the individual details forming the instruction Rama gives Bharata with regards to the duties of a king and the polity under an ideal monarchy. The entire list of the 50 plus hopes for an ideal rule in kingdom is presented in this post.
I trust king Dasaratha, who is true to his promise, a performer of Rajasuya and Ashwamedha sacrifices and a firm adherent of righteousness is in good health.
I trust the family preceptor of the Ikshvakus, Vasistha, the brahmin (versed in the Vedas), who is learned, ever fixed in virtues and effulgent is being honoured as usual.
I trust Kausalya and Sumitra, mothers of excellent progeny, are happy. I trust the noble queen Kaikeyi is happy too.
I trust, you continue to honour the family priest (Suyajna, son of Vasistha) who is endowed with modesty, born of high family, conversant in scriptures, free from envy and who can give you directions with regard to your duties.
I trust, the sagacious priest who knows ritual precepts, who is upright and is employed to take care of your sacred fires, informs you always regarding what was offered and what is to be offered as oblation at appropriate time.
I trust you continue to pay homage to gods, father, mothers, teachers, relations equal to your father, aged people, physicians and brahmins.
I hope you treat with respect Sudhanva who is equipped with the most formidable arrows and other weapons propelled by mantras and a master in the science of statecraft.
I hope you have appointed men who are brave, learned, self-controlled, of noble birth and skilled in guessing from hints in the administration.
The well-guarded advice of ministers, learned in scriptures and capable of proper counselling, is the root of victory for kings, especially when the advice is kept in confidence.
I hope you do not fall a prey to excess of sleep and do wake up at appropriate time. I hope you contemplate during the early mornings, about the adroitness of an action.
I hope that you do not deliberate alone nor indeed with numerous men. I hope your decision arrived at by you through such deliberation does not flow to the public (even before it is carried out).
I hope you consider your interest fully, launch an undertaking, which has maximum benefit with minimum cost and indeed do not delay it further.
I hope the other kings know your entire undertakings only after they have been successfully completed as well as those which have taken a shape, but not your proposed undertakings.
I hope others are not able to understand your determination or those of your ministers, either by conjecture or by inference or through other means without being revealed either by you or by your ministers.
I hope by setting aside a thousand fools, you prefer a single wise man. A wise man will be of immense help in difficult situations.
A single clearsighted minister who is prudent, brave and skilful can bring about great prosperity to a king or a prince.
I hope you have employed highly competent servants for important tasks, mediocre servants in mediocre tasks and low people in inferior tasks.
I hope you are appointing those ministers who are eminent, incorruptible, born of fathers and for bears of good family and who are full of integrity in matters of great importance.
Just like a performer of sacrifice scorns at an outcaste or a woman scorns at a lustful lover, do the subjects not scorn you for collecting taxes more than what is due?
A learned person but skilled in contrivances, a warrior with passion for wealth and a man ever engaged in corrupting the minds of servants must be slain. A king who does not kill them is himself killed in due course.
I trust you have appointed a man who is cheerful, brave, sagacious, steadfast, honest, of a good family, loyal and efficient as the army chief.
I trust you honour and respect those prominent soldiers who are courageous, powerful, skilled in war and who have proven heroic exploits.
I trust you distribute rations and wages to your army in due time without making delay. It has been mentioned in the scriptures that if provisions and wages are not paid in stipulated time, the dependent attendants will be incensed with their masters and will turn hostile and become corrupt, leading to great calamity.
I hope all the foremost descendents of your race (kshatriyas) are devoted to you and do they lay down their lives steadfastly for your sake?
I hope that a knowledgeable man, living in your own country, a wise man, a skilled person endowed with presence of mind and the one who knows how to speak to the point, is selected as an ambassador by you.
I hope you collect information (of their secret efforts) intelligently through unrecognisable spies with three of them closely watching each of the eighteen officials (there are eighteen categories of officials in a kingdom) of the enemy's side and fifteen (officials) on your side.
They are: 1)the chief minister; 2) the king's family priest; 3)the crown prince; 4)the leader of the army; 5) the chief warder; 6) the chamberlain (antaHpuraaH adhyaksha); 7)the superintendent of jails 8) the chancellor of the exchequer; 9)the herald; 10)the government advocate; 11) the judge; 12)the assessor; 13) the officer disbursing salaries to army men; 14) the officer drawing money from the state exchequer to disburse the workmen's wages; 15) the superintended of public works; 16) the protector of the borders of a kingdom, who also performed the duties of a forester; 17) the magistrate; 18) the officer entrusted with conservation of waters; hills, forests and tracts difficult of access.: The fifteen functionaries of one's own side are the last fifteen of this very list, omitting the first three; viz; the chief ministers, the family priest and the crown prince.
I hope you are always alert about your foes who were defeated by you and have come back. You should not ignore your enemies thinking they are weak.
I hope you do not serve those brahmins who are atheists, who foolishly think of this world alone and fancy themselves as learned. They only bring disasters. While principal scriptures do exist, these superficial fellows take resort to the science of logic based on abstract reasoning, and indulge in futile talks.
My dear brother I trust you are protecting the (impregnable) city of Ayodhya worthy of its name, formerly defended by our heroic ancestors, with its sturdy gates, its elephants, horses and chariots, its thousands of venerable, selfcontrolled and highly energetic brahmins, kshatriyas and vaisyas engaged in their respective professions, filled with palaces of various kinds, abounding in learned people and a prosperous city where everything is available in abundance.
I hope that the kingdom, adorned with peaceful places, rich in temples and sheds where water stored for distribution to passers-by in tanks, with happy men and women, graced by social festivities, with land well-tilled, abiding in cattle which are totally free from cruelties, the agricultural land not exclusively fed by rains, which is beautiful and is purged of beasts of prey, which is completely rid of fears, studded with mines, a destitute of sinful men, and well-protected by our fore-fathers, is prosperous and an abode of happiness.
I trust all those men who live on agriculture and cattle rearing are favourable to you. The world's prosperity, dear brother, grows on the profession of cattle rearing.
I trust you keep the women pacified and well protected, you do not believe their words and do not divulge any secrets to them.
I trust you protect the habitat of elephants, and you have a large number of milch cows. I trust you are not contented with the existing number of female and male
elephants and horses.
Do you, regally adorned, appear before the people on rising each morning, on the thoroughfare?
I hope that all your servants, in your presence, do not adopt a disrespectful attitude or on the other hand all of them do not hasten away on seeing you. Ofcourse, a middle course only in the principle to be followed in this matter.
I hope all your citadels are quite full of money, grain, weapons, water and mechanical contrivances as well as artisans and archers.
I hope your income is abundant and expenditure, minimum. I hope your treasure does not reach undeserving people.
I hope that your expenditure goes for the cause of divinity, manes, brahmins, unexpected visitors, soldiers and hosts of friends.
I trust a man who is honest, purehearted and venerable, falsely accused of adultery is not slain out of avarice without consulting experts in scriptures.
If a thief is seen and even caught at the time of his act on sufficient ground and interrogated, I hope he is not released from greed of wealth.
I hope that your well-educated ministers examine a case dispassionately when a contention occurs between a rich man and a poor man, after studying the situation carefully.
The tears falling from the eyes of persons, who are falsely accused and punished for the pleasure of the king will destroy his progeny and cattle as well.
I trust you wish to thrive by treating the old, children and foremost of learned people with the three expedients namely gifts, affection and kind words.
I hope you greet your teachers, the elderly, the ascetics, the deities; the unexpected visitors, the trees standing at crossroads and all the brahmins of auspicious life and conduct.
I trust righteousness for the sake of prosperity or prosperity for the sake of righteousness or both for the sake of sensual pleasure are not thwarted by you.
I hope you pursue wealth, religion and the delights of the senses (dharma, artha, kama) dividing them all according to time.
Those brahmins who can comprehend the meaning of all scriptures along with the inhabitants of the city and country, I trust, are seeking your happiness.
Do you eschew the following fourteen faults of kings -viz. atheism, falsehood, anger, carelessness, procrastination, disregard of the wise, sloth, bondage to the five senses, himself alone devoting thought to the affairs of the state (without consulting the ministers); taking counsel with those of perverted insight; failure to undertake the projects already decided, failure to keep secrets, failure to utter auspicious words (at the beginning of an undertaking); and rising from one's seat (indiscriminately) to receive all
I hope you understand the following and deal them properly the ten evils(1); the five kinds of fortifications(2); the four expedients(3); the seven limbs of state(4); the eight evils (born of anger) the three objects of human pursuit(5); the three branches of learning(6) subjugation of the senses, the six strategic expedients(7); adversity brought about by divine agencies(8); and by human agencies(9); the twenty types of monarchs(10); and the entire population of the kingdom, setting about an expedition, drawing up an army in a battle-array and the two bases viz, peace and war.
(1). Ten evils attendant on royalty to be eschew. Hunting, gambling, sleeping during the day, lustfulness, inebriation, pride, calumny, lounging about idly or aimlessly, diversions such as singing and dancing. (2). Five kinds of fortifications: By moat, high bank, trees thickly planted, a space destitute of grain or provisions, the turning of waters. (3) Four expedients:- Making peace, liberality, sowing dissension, chastisement. (4) Seven limbs of state king, ministers, friends, treasure, territory, forts and an army. (5) Three objects of human pursuit: Religious merit, material wealth and sensuous enjoyment or the three kinds of power (viz. energy, power of dominion, power of counsel) (6) Three branches of learning: the three Vedas, the knowledge relating to agriculture, commerce and other vocational pursuits and political science. (7) Six strategic expedients: Coming to terms with the enemy, waging war against him, marching against him, biding one's time to seek a favourable opportunity, causing dissension in the enemy's ranks, seeking protection of a powerful ally. (8) Adversity brought about by divine agencies: Fire, water in the shape of excessive rains or floods, epidemic or endemic diseases, famine and pestulence, earthquakes and Tsunamis. (9) Adversity brought about by human agencies: officials, thieves, enemies, king's favourites and king himself, when acutated by greed. (10)Twenty types of monarchs (who are not worth-negotiating with):1. a king who is yet a child. 2. Aged. 3. Who has been ailing for a long time. 4. who has been ostracised by his own kith and kin. 5. ho is characterized by a cowardly attitude. 6. who is surrounded by cowards. 7. who is greedy. 8. has greedy associated. 9. who has estranged his ministers and others. 10. who confers with fickle-minded persons 11. who speaks ill of divine begins and brahmins; 12. who is extremely indulged in sensuous pleasures and luxuries; 13. who is ill-fated; 14. a fatalist (who believes that all things are pre-determined or subject to fate); 15. who is afflicted by famine and; 16. by military reverses; 17. who (mostly) remains away from home; 18. who has numerous enemies; 19. who is in the clutches of adverse times and; 20. who is not devoted to truth and piety.
I trust you deliberate in secrecy on your counsel with three or four counsellors, together and separately with each one, as laid down in sacred texts.
Do you find advantages in your study of Vedas? Are your acts production of fair results? Do you benefit from the company of your consorts? Has your learning been fruitful?
I trust your intellect is in conformity with what I said conducive to long life, and fame in accordance with righteousness, (legitimate) pleasure and prosperity.
I trust, you walk the auspicious path of truth (virtue) followed by our father and forefathers.
I trust you do not partake delicious food all by yourself, and you share it with your friends when they want it.
A wise and learned king, having obtained and ruled the entire earth, properly by righteousness and by administering justice to the people, indeed ascends to heaven when detached from the mortal body.
This concludes the Kaschit sarga or 100th chapter of the Ayodhya Kanda which is a treatise on political science and duties of a ruler. The instruction is in the form of a series of questions which bring out the duties to be observed, and the ideals of governance, emphasizing strict adherence to the dharma sastras. These are some of the principles upon which ‘Rama Rajya’ is built. This should be in the training curriculum of the schools, colleges and institutes where future citizens and leaders are made. It is in the earnest hope that all these hopes of Rama are thrusted in every kingdom, country and land around the world to bring about ‘Rule of Hope’ on the earth.
