disrespect or to walk disdainfully or display insolent gestures and disrespectful motions of the limbs.  If the king becomes gratified, he can shower prosperity like god.  If he becomes enraged, he can consume to the very roots like a blazing fire.  This, O king, was said by Yama.  Its truth is seen in the affairs of the world.  I shall now (acting according to these precepts) do that which would enhance thy prosperity.  Friends like ourselves can give unto friends like thee the aid of their intelligence in seasons of peril.  This crow of mine, O king, has been slain for doing thy business.  I cannot, however, blame thee for this.  Thou art not loved by those (that have slain this bird).  Ascertain who are thy friends and who thy foes.  Do everything thyself without surrendering thy intelligence to others.  They who are on thy establishment are all peculators.  They do not desire the good of thy subjects.  I have incurred their hostility.  Conspiring with those servants that have constant access to thee they covet the kingdom after thee by compassing thy destruction.  Their plans, however, do not succeed in consequence of unforeseen circumstances.  Through fear of those men, O king, I shall leave this kingdom for some other asylum.  I have no worldly desire, yet those persons of deceitful intentions have shot this shaft at my crow, and have, O lord, despatched the bird to Yama’s abode.  I have seen this, O king, with eyes whose vision has been improved by penances.  With the assistance of this single crow I have crossed this kingdom of thine that is like a river abounding with alligators and sharks and crocodiles and whales.  Indeed, with the assistance of that bird, I have passed through thy dominions like unto a Himalayan valley, impenetrable and inaccessible in consequence of trunks of (fallen) trees and scattered rocks and thorny shrubs and lions and tigers and other beasts of prey.  The learned say that a region inaccessible in consequence of gloom can be passed through with the aid of a light, and a river that is unfordable can be crossed by means of a boat.  No means, however, exist for penetrating or passing through the labyrinth of kingly affairs.  Thy kingdom is like an inaccessible forest enveloped with gloom.  Thou (that art the lord of it) canst not trust it.  How then can I?  Good and evil are regarded here in the same light.  Residence here cannot, therefore, be safe.  Here a person of righteous deeds meets with death, while one of unrighteous deeds incurs no danger.  According to the requirements of justice, a person of unrighteous deeds should be slain but never one who is righteous in his acts.  It is not proper, therefore, for one to stay in this kingdom long.  A man of sense should leave this country soon.  There is a river, O king, of the name of Sita.  Boats sink in it.  This thy kingdom is like that river.  An all-destructive net seems to have been cast around it.  Thou art like the fall that awaits collectors of honey, or like attractive food containing poison.  Thy nature