Shloka 2
Education and Conduct — Chanakya Niti
अधीत्येदं यथाशास्त्रं नरो जानाति सत्तमः ।
धर्मोपदेशविख्यातं कार्याकार्यं शुभाशुभम् ॥
adhītyedaṃ yathāśāstraṃ naro jānāti sattamaḥ |
dharmopadeśavikhyātaṃ kāryākāryaṃ śubhāśubham ||
Whoever studies this work in accordance with śāstra comes to know, through dharma-based instruction, what should and should not be done, and what is auspicious and inauspicious.
FAQs
In the broader nīti-śāstra milieu, such verses function as prefatory claims about textual authority and pedagogical utility. The phrasing situates the work within śāstra-based learning and frames its content as a traditional taxonomy of action (kārya/akārya) and value (śubha/aśubha), reflecting an educational culture where moral, social, and political reasoning were commonly articulated through concise didactic poetry.
The verse presents kārya/akārya as a recognized binary of permissible or advisable action versus non-action (or prohibited/ill-advised action) as understood through dharma-oriented instruction. It does not enumerate specific acts here; rather, it characterizes the text’s role as transmitting a classificatory framework for evaluating conduct.
Key terms are technical and institutional: śāstra implies an authoritative, systematized body of knowledge; dharmopadeśa indicates instruction grounded in normative order; and the paired compounds kāryākāryam and śubhāśubham use conventional Sanskrit binary coupling to express comprehensive discernment. The epithet sattamaḥ functions rhetorically to associate correct study with cultivated discernment, typical of didactic Sanskrit verse.