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CHAPTER FIVE
the one with a hundred wants a thousand; the master of a thousand wants a lac; the possessor of a lac wants a crore; the owner of a crore wants to be a king; a king wants to be a cakravartin; a cakravartin wants to be a god; and a god wants to be an Indra. Even when the rank of an Indra has been attained, since desire is not checked, greed, though small in the beginning, grows like grass.218 As injury to life is the worst of all evils; as wrong belief is the worst of all karma; as tuberculosis is the worst of all diseases; so greed is the worst of all faults..
Oh! greed has a one-umbrellaed sovereignty over the earth, since even trees cover up a deposit, which they have received, with their roots. Even the two-sensed, threeand four-sensed, because of greed for money, stand guard over their former deposits with infatuation. Serpents 217 and house-lizards, though chief five-sensed creatures, cling to the places of deposits from greed for money. From greed Piśācas, Mudgalas, 218 spirits, ghosts, Yakşas, et cetera, stand guard over their own or another's money. Even gods, infatuated with ornaments, gardens, ponds, et cetera, are born in these same things in birth-nuclei of earth-bodies, et cetera, when they have fallen. Even ascetics, after attaining the stage when delusion is quiescent, 219 when anger, et cetera, have been overcome, fall from the fault of just a particle of greed. Full brothers soon fight from desire for a bit of money, like dogs from desire for food. From greed villagers, ministers, and kings become enemies of each other, their friendship destroyed by the question of boundaries of villages, et cetera.
Greedy people, like actors, portray laughter, grief, enmity, joy, before the master, though obviously not
916 315. See Text Corrections.
217 319. Serpents as guardians of treasure are common-place in Indian folk-lore, but lizards are not.
218 320. A kind of Vyantara. See PH, moggada. 219 322. The eleventh gunasthāna.
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