Shloka 21
Dharma and Wealth — Chanakya Niti
धनधान्यप्रयोगेषु विद्यासङ्ग्रहणे तथा ।
आहारे व्यवहारे च त्यक्तलज्जः सुखी भवेत् ॥
dhana-dhānya-prayogeṣu vidyā-saṅgrahaṇe tathā |
āhāre vyavahāre ca tyakta-lajjaḥ sukhī bhavet ||
In using wealth and grain, in gathering learning, and in food and daily dealings, one who sets aside inhibiting shame becomes content and prosperous.
FAQs
In the broader niti (conduct) literature associated with Chanakya Niti, verses often compress observations about household economy, learning, and public dealings into aphoristic form. This reflects a social milieu in which subsistence resources (grain), monetary wealth, education, and transactional competence were treated as central to stability and status within early Indian urban and agrarian settings.
Here lajjā is framed as a form of social inhibition that can restrict effective action in resource management, learning acquisition, consumption, and transactional life. The phrasing suggests a pragmatic valuation: setting aside inhibiting shame is presented as correlated with ease or success, rather than as a moral definition of virtue.
The verse uses a list structure (four domains: dhana-dhānya, vidyā, āhāra, vyavahāra) to map a single quality—tyakta-lajjaḥ—across economic, intellectual, and social spheres. The compound धनधान्य- (wealth + grain) is a conventional pairing in Sanskrit discourse, linking monetized resources with staple agrarian produce, while vyavahāra carries a technical range from everyday conduct to formal transaction.