Ramayana 2.536a

By sage Javali thus addressed, Rama of truthful hearts the best, With perfect skill and wisdom high Thus to his speech made fit reply: "Thy words that tempt to bliss are fair, But virtue's garb they falsely wear. For he from duty's path who strays To wander in forbidden ways, Allured by doctrine false and vain, Praise from the good can never gain. Their lives the true and boaster show, Pure and impure, and high and low, Else were no mark to judge between Stainless and stained and high and mean; They to whose lot fair signs may fall Were but as they who lack them all, And those to virtuous thoughts inclined Were but as men of evil mind. If in the sacred name of right I do this wrong in duty's spite; The path of virtue meanly quit, And this polluting sin commit, What man who marks the bounds between Virtue and vice with insight keen, Would rank me high in after time Stained with this soul destroying crime? Whither could I, the sinner, turn, How hope a seat in heaven to earn, If I my plighted promise break, And thus the righteous path forsake? This world of ours is ever led To walk the ways which others tread, And as their princes they behold, The subjects too their lives will mould. That truth and mercy still must be Beloved of kings, is Heaven's decree. Upheld by truth the monarch reigns, And truth the very world sustains. Truth evermore has been the love Of holy saints and Gods above, And he whose lips are truthful here Wins after death the highest sphere. As from a serpent's deadly tooth, We shrink from him who scorns the truth. For holy truth is root and spring Of justice and each holy thing, A might that every power transcends, Linked to high bliss that never ends. Truth is all virtue's surest base, Supreme in worth and first in place. Oblations, gifts men offer here, Vows, sacrifice, and rites austere, And Holy Writ, on truth depend: So men must still that truth defend.