12. Impartiality

Chapter. 12. Impartiality
Kural-111
If justice, failing not, its quality maintain,
Giving to each his due, -'tis man's one highest gain.
Meaning : That equity which consists in acting with equal regard to each of (the three) divisions of men [enemies, strangers and friends] is a pre-eminent virtue.
Kural-112
The just man's wealth unwasting shall endure,
And to his race a lasting joy ensure.
Meaning : The wealth of the man of rectitude will not perish, but will bring happiness also to his posterity.
Kural-113
Though only good it seem to give, yet gain
By wrong acquired, not e'en one day retain!
Meaning : Forsake in the very moment (of acquisition) that gain which, though it should bring advantage, is without equity.
Kural-114
Who just or unjust lived shall soon appear:
By each one's offspring shall the truth be clear.
Meaning : The worthy and unworthy may be known by the existence or otherwise of good offsprings.
Kural-115
The gain and loss in life are not mere accident;
Just mind inflexible is sages' ornament.
Meaning : Loss and gain come not without cause; it is the ornament of the wise to preserve evenness of mind (under both).
Kural-116
If, right deserting, heart to evil turn,
Let man impending ruin's sign discern!
Meaning : Let him whose mind departing from equity commits sin well consider thus within himself, "I shall perish."
Kural-117
The man who justly lives, tenacious of the right,
In low estate is never low to wise man's sight.
Meaning : The great will not regard as poverty the low estate of that man who dwells in the virtue of equity.
Kural-118
To stand, like balance-rod that level hangs and rightly weighs,
With calm unbiassed equity of soul, is sages' praise.
Meaning : To incline to neither side, but to rest impartial as the even-fixed scale is the ornament of the wise.
Kural-119
Inflexibility in word is righteousness,
If men inflexibility of soul possess.
Meaning : Freedom from obliquity of speech is rectitude, if there be (corresponding) freedom from bias of mind.
Kural-120
As thriving trader is the trader known,
Who guards another's interests as his own.
Meaning : The true merchandize of merchants is to guard and do by the things of others as they do by their own