{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry187.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry187.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry187.htm","text":"By sage J\u00e1v\u00e1li thus addressed,\n R\u00e1ma of truthful hearts the best,\n \n \n \n With perfect skill and wisdom high\n Thus to his speech made fit reply:\n 'Thy words that tempt to bliss are fair.\n But virtue's garb they falsely wear.\n For he from duty's path who strays\n To wander in forbidden ways,\n Allured by doctrine false and vain,\n Praise from the good can never gain.\n Their lives the true and boaster show,\n Pure and impure, and high and low.\n Else were no mark to judge between\n Stainless and stained and high and mean;\n They to whose lot fair signs may fall\n Were but as they who lack them all,\n And those to virtuous thouguts inclined\n Were but as men of evil mind.\n If in the sacred name of right\n I do this wrong in duty's spite;\n The path of virtue meanly quit,\n And this polluting sin commit,\n What man who marks the bounds between\n Virtue and vice with insight keen,\n Would rank me high in after time.\n Stained with this soul destroying crime?\n Whither could I, the sinner, turn,\n How hope a seat in heaven to earn,\n If I my plighted promise break,\n And thus the righteous path forsake?\n This world of ours is ever led\n To walk the ways which others tread,\n And as their princes they behold,\n The subjects too their lives will mould.\n That truth and mercy still must be\n Beloved of kings, is Heaven's decree.\n Upheld by truth the monarch reigns,\n And truth the very world sustains.\n Truth evermore has been the love\n Of holy saints and Gods above,\n And he whose lips are truthful here\n Wins after death the highest sphere.\n As from a serpent's deadly tooth,\n We shrink from him who scorns the truth.\n For holy truth is root and spring\n Of justice and each holy thing,\n A might that every power transcends,\n Linked to high bliss that never ends.\n Truth is all virtue's surest base,\n Supreme in worth and first in place.\n Oblations, gifts men offer here,\n Vows, sacrifice, and rites austere,\n And Holy Writ, on truth depend:\n So men must still that truth defend.\n Truth, only truth protects the land,\n By truth unharmed our houses stand;\n Neglect of truth makes men distressed,\n And truth in highest heaven is blessed.\n Then how can I, rebellious, break\n Commandments which my father spake--\n I ever* true and faithful found,\n And by my word of honour bound?\n My father's bridge of truth shall stand\n Unharmed by my destructive hand:\n Not folly, ignorance, or greed\n My darkened soul shall thus mislead.\n Have we not heard that God and shade\n Turn from the hated offerings paid\n By him whose false and fickle mind\n No pledge can hold, no promise bind?\n Truth is all duty: as the soul,\n It quickens and supports the whole.\n The good respect this duty: hence\n Its sacred claims I reverence.\n The Warrior's duty I despise\n That seeks the wrong in virtue's guise:\n Those claims I shrink from, which the base,\n Cruel, and covetous embrace.\n The heart conceives the guilty thought,\n Then by the hand the sin is wrought,\n And with the pair is leagued a third,\n The tongue that speaks the lying word.\n Fortune and land and name and fame\n To man's best care have right and claim;\n The good will aye to truth adhere,\n And its high laws must men revere.\n Base were the deed thy lips would teach,\n Approved as best by subtle speech.\n Shall I my plighted promise break,\n That I these woods my home would make?*\n Shall I, as Bharat's words advise,\n My father's solemn charge despise?\n Firm stands the oath which then before\n My father's face I soothly swore,\n Which Queen Kaikeyi's anxious ear\n Bejoiced with highest joy to hear.\n Still in the wood will I remain,\n With food prescribed my life sustain,\n And please with fruit and roots and flowers\n Ancestral shades and heavenly powers.\n Here every sense contented, still\n Heeding the bounds of good and ill,\n My settled course will I pursue,\n Firm in my faith and ever true.\n Here in this wild and far retreat\n Will I my noble task complete;\n And Fire and Wind and *Moon shall be\n Partakers of its fruit with me.\n A hundred offerings duly wrought\n His rank o'er Gods for Indra bought,\n And mighty saints their heaven secured\n By torturing years on earth endured.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 That scoffing plea the hero spurned,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And thus he spake once more,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Chiding, the while his bosom burned,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 J\u00e1v\u00e1li's impious lore:\n \u00a0\u00a0 'Justice, and courage ne'er dismayed,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pity for all distressed,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Truth, loving honour duly paid\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To Brahman, God, and guest--\n \u00a0\u00a0 In these, the true and virtuous say,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Should lives of men be passed:\n \u00a0\u00a0 They form the right and happy way\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That leads to heaven at last.\n \n \n My father's thoughtless act I chide\n \u00a0\u00a0 That gave thee honoured place,\n Whose soul, from virtue turned aside,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Is faithless, dark, and base.\n We rank the Buddhist with the thief,\u00a01\n \u00a0\u00a0 And all the impious crew\n Who share his sinful disbelief,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And hate the right and true.\n Hence never should wise kings who seek\n \u00a0\u00a0 To rule their people well,\n Admit, before their face to speak,\n \u00a0\u00a0 The cursed infidel.\n But twice-born men in days gone by,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Of other sort than thou,\n Have wrought good deeds, whose glories high\n \u00a0\u00a0 Are fresh among us now:\n This world they conquered, nor in vain\n \u00a0\u00a0 They strove to win the skies:\n The twice-born hence pure lives maintain,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And fires of worship rise.\n Those who in virtue's path delight,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And with the virtuous live,--\n Whose flames of holy zeal are bright,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Whose hands are swift to give,\n Who injure none, and good and mild\n \u00a0\u00a0 In every grace excel,\n Whose lives by sin are undefiled,\n \u00a0\u00a0 We love and honour well.'\n Thus Rama spoke in righteous rage\n \u00a0\u00a0 *J'av'ali's speech to chide,\n When thus again the virtuous sage\n \u00a0\u00a0 In truthful words replied:\n 'The atheist's lore I use no more,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Not mine his impious creed:\n His words and doctrine I abhor,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Assumed at time of need.\n E'en as I rose to speak with thee,\n \u00a0\u00a0 The fit occasion came\n That bade me use the atheist's plea\n \u00a0\u00a0 To turn thee from thine aim.\n The atheist creed I disavow,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Unsay the words of sin,\n And use the faithful's language now\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thy favour, Prince, to win.\n \n \n \n \n217:1 It was the custom of Indian women when mourning for their absent husbands to bind their hair in a long single braid.\nCarey and Marshman translate, 'the one-tailed city,'","title":"Book II: Canto CIX.: The Praises of Truth.","type":"page"}