Chapter 91அதிகாரம் 91 காப்பு Protection

While protection stands, they never know the sword; once it goes, the sword’s edge carves its scar into the flesh.

A fence, until the day the root takes hold; once it has grown, the root itself raises the tree.

For whoever lights a lamp in the wind and shields it with his hand, even the lamp his own hand lit is fire.

People do not know the face of the one who saw it coming and guarded them; the one who learned of it after and set it right, they praise on reflection.

The Tamil word for ‘set right’ serves both for curing an illness and for settling a dispute.

The sleepless eye is the one pillar the whole fortress sleeps on; if that pillar falls, all of it is dust.

Whoever falls on stone knows the stone; whoever falls on cotton does not know the cotton.

Whoever counts the thorns of the fence will count tigers on open ground with no fence.

When many poles are planted for a creeper to climb, the creeper disappears among them, and the place becomes a forest of poles.

When the growing is done, the guardians begin to scorch; the cage called protection is a prison.

The guardian’s skin is wet; the umbrella the guardian holds is over those he guards.