Shloka 12
Right Conduct — Chanakya Niti
एकाहारेण सन्तुष्टः षट्कर्मनिरतः सदा ।
ऋतुकालाभिगामी च स विप्रो द्विज उच्यते ॥
ekāhāreṇa santuṣṭaḥ ṣaṭkarmanirataḥ sadā |
ṛtukālābhigāmī ca sa vipro dvija ucyate ||
Content with a single meal, ever devoted to the six prescribed duties, and approaching sexual union only in the proper season—such a one is called a “vipra”, a “dvija”.
FAQs
Within the nītiśāstra milieu, such verses function as compact social-ethical summaries that reflect Brahmanical normative ideals. The emphasis on regulated diet, ritual obligations, and sexual restraint aligns with broader dharma literature that sought to define learned and ritually qualified social categories in premodern South Asia.
Here “vipra” and “dvija” are presented through behavioral markers rather than lineage alone: contentment with limited food, continual engagement in the “six duties” (ṣaṭkarman), and adherence to seasonally regulated sexual conduct (ṛtukāla). The verse thus frames status as a composite of ascetic-ritual discipline and regulated household life.
The compound ṣaṭkarmanirataḥ condenses a complex ritual program into a single epithet; in many scholastic contexts ṣaṭkarman refers to teaching, studying, sacrificing, officiating for others, giving, and receiving gifts (or closely related enumerations). The term ṛtukālābhigāmī uses ṛtu (“season,” also “fertile period”) to encode a culturally specific ideal of regulated sexuality, indicating a normative linkage between household discipline and ritual purity.