Shloka 18
Dharma and Wealth — Chanakya Niti
विनयं राजपुत्रेभ्यः पण्डितेभ्यः सुभाषितम् ।
अनृतं द्यूतकारेभ्यः स्त्रीभ्यः शिक्षेत कैतवम् ॥
vinayaṃ rājaputrebhyaḥ paṇḍitebhyaḥ subhāṣitam |
anṛtaṃ dyūtakārebhyaḥ strībhyaḥ śikṣet kaitavam ||
Learn humility from princes, fine speech from the learned; learn falsehood from gamblers, and deception from women.
FAQs
This verse reflects a genre of premodern South Asian nīti (didactic) literature that organizes social knowledge through typologies of groups (royal youth, scholars, gamblers, women). Such formulations are commonly read as products of courtly and urban milieus where moral instruction, political prudence, and social stereotyping coexisted as rhetorical strategies for teaching judgment.
Here “learning” (śikṣet) is presented as pragmatic observation: the verse frames different social groups as sources of particular behaviors or speech-forms. The structure implies that a discerning person can extract lessons—both positive (humility, good speech) and cautionary/strategic (untruth, deceit)—from social interaction.
The verse uses parallelism and antithesis: two valued qualities (vinaya, subhāṣita) are paired with two disvalued qualities (anṛta, kaitava). The dative plural endings (-ebhyaḥ) create a compact catalog of “sources” of conduct. Terms like anṛta and kaitava function as moral-lexical markers in Sanskrit ethical discourse, while the attribution of kaitava to strī reflects a conventional, gendered trope found in some didactic anthologies rather than a descriptive social survey.