REFORMERS AND THEIR FATE 193
gifts, and it is for the purpose of my sacrifice that I have provided this wealth. Well, I intend to accomplish my sacrifice in the manner which I have considered to be the proper once. Let every one who wishes for money, that it may be fuel for his happiness, come and accept it from my hand to his heart’s content. In this way the distress and poverty, which is vexing our country, may be soon driven out. Indeed, whenever I consider my own strong determination to protect my subjects and the great assistance I derive from you, my excellent companions in that task, it often seems to me as though those sufferings of my people, by exciting my anger, were burning in my mind like a blazing fire.’
The ministers accepted the royal command and anon went to execute it. They ordered alms-halls to be established in all villages, towns, and markets, likewise at all stations on the roads. This being done, they caused all who begged in order to satisfy their wants, to be provided day after day with a gift of those objects, just as had been ordered by the king.
So poverty disappeared, and the people, having received wealth from the part of the king, dressed and adorned with manifold and fine garments and ornaments, exhibited the splendour of festival days.
The glory of the king, magnified by the eulogies of the rejoiced recipients of his gifts, spread about in all directions in the same way, as the flowerdust of the lotuses carried forth by the small waves of a lake, extends. itself over a larger and larger surface.
And after the whole people, in consequence of the wise measures taken by their ruler, had become intent on virtuous behaviour, the plagues and calamities, overpowered by the growth of all such qualities as conduce to prosperity, faded away, having lost their hold.
The seasons succeeded each other in due course, rejoicing everybody by their regularity, and like kings newly established, complying with the lawful order of things. Consequently the earth produced the various kinds of corn in abundance, and there was fulness of pure and blue water and lotuses in all waterbasins.
No epidemics afflicted mankind; the medicinal herbs possessed their efficacious virtues more than ever; monsoons blew in due time and regularly; the planets moved along in auspicious paths.
Nowhere there existed any danger to be feared, either from abroad, or from within, or such as might be caused by dangerous derangements of the elements. Continuing in righteousness and self-control, cultivating good behaviour and modesty, the people of that country enjoyed as it were the prerogatives of the Krita Yuga.