Artha (artha)

Artha is prosperity, power and the material means of life, the second of the four legitimate human aims. The Mahabharata treats it as necessary rather than shameful: a king without treasury and army cannot protect anyone, and Bhishma's teaching on statecraft is largely about acquiring and keeping it. The epic's warning is about proportion, since Duryodhana's refusal to yield even five villages and Yudhishthira's gambling are both failures to hold artha in its proper place beneath dharma.