They who see sin where there is sin, and no sin where there is no sin, such men, embracing the true doctrine, enter the good path.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
THE ELEPHANT
Silently I endured abuse as the elephant in battle endures the arrow sent from the bow: for the world is ill-natured.
They lead a tamed elephant to battle, the king mounts a tamed elephant; the tamed is the best among men, he who silently endures abuse.
Mules are good, if tamed, and noble Sindhu horses, and elephants with large tusks; but he who tames himself is better still.
For with these animals does no man reach the untrodden country (Nirvâna), where a tamed man goes on a tamed animal—on his own well-tamed self.
The elephant called Dhanapâlaka, his temples running with pungent sap, and who is difficult to hold, does not eat a morsel when bound; the elephant longs for the elephant grove.
If a man becomes fat and a great eater, if he is sleepy and rolls himself about, that fool, like a hog fed on grains, is born again and again.