I also know that you five brothers are learned and
high-souled, that ye are foremost of all wielders of weapons, that ye are
brave and virtuous and observant of vows. Knowing that your understanding
and hearts are excellent and your behaviour faultless, I have yet censured
you. For, O thou of Kuru's race, it behoveth no man endued with might of
arms to bear with patience any ill usage in the sight of his wife.
Especially as, O son of Kunti, our might increaseth during the hours of
darkness, accompanied by my wife I was filled with wrath. O best of vow-
observing men, I have, however, been vanquished by thee in battle. Listen
to me as I tell thee the reasons that have led to my discomfiture. The
Brahmacharya is a very superior mode of life, and as art in that mode now,
it is for this, O Partha, that I have been defeated by thee in battle. O
chastiser of foes, if any married Kshatriya fight with us at night, he can
never escape, with life. But, O Partha, a married Kshatriya, who is
sanctified with Brahma, and who hath assigned the cares of his State to a
priest, might vanquish all wanderers in the night. O child of Tapati, men
should therefore, ever employ learned priests possessing self-command for
the acquisition of every good luck they desire. That Brahmana is worthy of
being the king's priest who is learned in the Vedas and the six branches
thereof, who is pure and truthful, who is of virtuous soul and possessed
of self-command. The monarch becometh ever victorious and finally earneth
heaven who hath for his priest a Brahmana conversant with the rules of
morality, who is a master of words, and is pure and of good behaviour.
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