Yudhishthira said “When virtue is deteriorated and is transgressed by all, when sin is considered as virtue, and virtue become vice, when all healthy restraints are washed a way, and all truths regarding righteousness are disturbed and confounded, when people are oppressed by kings and robbers, when men of all the four modes of life become stupefied about their duties, and all works are shorn of merit, when men see cause of fear on all sides for lust and covetousness and folly, when all creatures cease to trust one another, when they kill one another by deceitful means and impose upon one another, when houses are consumed throughout the country, when the Brahmanas are greatly assailed, when the clouds do not discharge a drop of rain, when every one's hand is turned against his neighbour, when all the necessaries of life are misappropriated by robbers, when, indeed, such a season of dreadful distress sets in by what means should a Brahmana live who is reluctant to renounce mercy and his children? How, indeed, should a Brahmana maintain himself at such a time? Tell me this, O grandfather! How also should the king live at such a time when iniquity possess the world? How, O scorcher of enemies, should the king live so that he might not deviate from both virtue and profit.