Shloka 9
Right Conduct — Chanakya Niti
ये तु संवत्सरं पूर्णं नित्यं मौनेन भुञ्जते ।
युगकोटिसहस्रं तैः स्वर्गलोके महीयते ॥
ye tu saṃvatsaraṃ pūrṇaṃ nityaṃ maunena bhuñjate |
yugakoṭisahasraṃ taiḥ svargaloke mahīyate ||
Those who for a full year take their food while constantly observing silence are honored in the heavenly realm for thousands of crores of ages.
FAQs
In the broader Sanskrit nīti and dharma-oriented literature, references to vows such as mauna (silence) reflect a shared cultural milieu in which ascetic restraint was treated as a source of religious merit (puṇya). The verse preserves a conventional idiom that links self-discipline with posthumous honor in svarga, a theme also visible across related genres of didactic and moralizing texts circulating in early and medieval South Asia.
The verse frames the practice as sustained mauna in conjunction with eating (maunena bhuñjate), implying a disciplined, ongoing observance rather than a momentary silence. The emphasis falls on duration (a full year) and regularity (nityam), presented as the conditions under which the tradition assigns exceptional merit.
The expression yugakoṭisahasram functions as hyperbolic cosmological quantification, using yuga as a unit of vast time to magnify the resulting honor (mahīyate). The construction also illustrates a common didactic strategy in Sanskrit aphoristic literature: pairing a concrete ascetic discipline (mauna) with an immeasurably large reward-time to underscore the perceived potency of restraint.