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ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
welfare requires that one should control one's senses in all respects where they are in conflict with one's good. Uncontrolled senseindulgence has been described by the wise as a sign of lurking
cattledom'; and it would be certainly foolish to allow the tongue to eat up one's chances of salvation, or to mar the future prospects of the soul.
The object of life, it has been pointed out by every thinking man, is not living to eat, but eating to live. A Persian poet has it :
خوردن برای زیستن , ذکر کردن است تو معتقد که زیستن از بهر خوردن است
| Tr. Eating is to sustain life and meditation ;
Thou holdest it to be the (sole) object of life !)
The same considerations apply to political ambition, for what shall a man profit if he gain all the goods of the world but lose his own soul ? Accordingly, the poet asks the shade of the Great Warrior who had filled the world with deeds of his renown:
آپ کے روزا جیا کس لئے دارا مارا ؟
Tr. How long didst thou live?
To what purpose killedst thou Dara (Darius)?1
When the redoubtable Mahmud of Ghazni was on his death-bed, it is said that he had all the plundered wealth of India brought before him to pass it in review for the last time. It was a touching sight to see this old warrior who had carried pillage and sword no less than seventeen times to India, lying with the stamp of despair on his ghastly face. There he lay surrounded by his warrior hosts, his weapons still lying within reach and his riches in front, but conscious of the fast-approaching foe, and of his utter helplessness against it--a true picture of the final scene in the drama of world-power and its inevitable end! Can we doubt after this that ahimsā is the highest religion, the dharma which sustains and supports ? Life is dear to all, and
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