Shloka 5
Education and Conduct — Chanakya Niti
दुष्टा भार्या शठं मित्रं भृत्यश्चोत्तरदायकः ।
ससर्पे च गृहे वासो मृत्युरेव न संशयः ॥
duṣṭā bhāryā śaṭhaṁ mitraṁ bhṛtyaś cottaradāyakaḥ |
sasarpe ca gṛhe vāso mṛtyur eva na saṁśayaḥ ||
A wicked wife, a deceitful friend, a back-talking servant, and living in a house with a snake—this is death itself, without doubt.
FAQs
In the broader genre of Sanskrit nīti (didactic) literature, such verses function as compact aphorisms reflecting ideals of social stability and risk-avoidance. The imagery combines domestic roles (spouse, friend, servant) with a concrete hazard (a snake in the house) to express a traditional concern with trust, loyalty, and safety within the household—topics that overlap with wider discussions of order and reliability in classical political-moral thought.
Danger is framed as both physical (the presence of a snake in the home) and social-relational (deceit, hostility, or contentious speech within close relationships). The verse treats these as comparable in severity by collapsing them into a single metaphorical outcome—‘death’—as a way of emphasizing perceived existential risk within its rhetorical tradition.
The construction is a four-item list culminating in a summary judgment, a common gnomic technique. The compound/derivative term ‘uttaradāyakaḥ’ (one who ‘gives an answer back’) can imply retort or insubordination in context, highlighting speech as a marker of social friction. The final clause ‘mṛtyur eva na saṁśayaḥ’ intensifies the proverb through absolute diction (‘indeed death, no doubt’), signaling a stylized certainty rather than an empirical claim.