Chanakya Niti — Dharma and Wealth, Shloka 10
न विप्रपादोदककर्दमाणि
न वेदशास्त्रध्वनिगर्जितानि ।
स्वाहास्वधाकारविवर्जितानि
श्मशानतुल्यानि गृहाणि तानि ॥
na viprapādodakakardamāṇi
na vedaśāstradhvanigarjitāni |
svāhāsvadhākāravivarjitāni
śmaśānatulyāni gṛhāṇi tāni ||
যে ঘরে ব্রাহ্মণের পাদোদকের স্পর্শ নেই, বেদ-শাস্ত্রের গর্জিত ধ্বনি নেই, আর ‘স্বাহা’ ‘স্বধা’ উচ্চারণ নেই—সে ঘর শ্মশানের তুল্য।
FAQs
The verse reflects a classical South Asian ideal in which household legitimacy and social prestige were associated with brahmanical presence, textual recitation (Veda/śāstra), and routine ritual acts. Such formulations are commonly read by historians as evidence for how domestic space was conceptually tied to learned and sacrificial-ancestral practices in premodern normative literature.
Absence is framed through three markers: lack of contact with a brāhmaṇa (signaled by pādodaka), lack of audible learning (Vedic and śāstric recitation), and lack of ritual utterances linked to offerings for deities and ancestors (svāhā/svadhā). The verse uses these as indicators of a house being symbolically ‘empty’ of sanctioned cultural-religious activity.
The metaphor equating such houses with a śmaśāna (cremation-ground) employs a strong purity/inauspiciousness contrast typical of dharma and nīti literature. Compounds like vedaśāstradhvanigarjitāni intensify the auditory imagery (“resounding” learning), while svāhāsvadhākāra foregrounds formulaic ritual speech as a defining feature of an ‘alive’ household in the text’s idiom.