Shloka 11
Practical Maxims — Chanakya Niti
दूरागतं पथि श्रान्तं वृथा च गृहमागतम् ।
अनर्चयित्वा यो भुङ्क्ते स वै चाण्डाल उच्यते ॥
dūrāgataṃ pathi śrāntaṃ vṛthā ca gṛham āgatam |
anarcayitvā yo bhuṅkte sa vai cāṇḍāla ucyate ||
One who eats without first honoring a weary traveler who has come from afar and reached the house with no other refuge is called a “cāṇḍāla” in the text.
FAQs
In classical Sanskrit ethical literature (nīti/dharma-oriented materials), hospitality toward the atithi (unexpected or arriving guest) is repeatedly presented as a core householder obligation. This verse reflects a normative social world in which feeding and honoring a weary traveler functioned as a marker of civility, religious merit, and household reputation, and in which strong condemnatory labels were used to enforce such expectations.
The verse frames the failure as eating oneself without first honoring (anarcayitvā) a guest who is distant-traveled and road-weary and has come to the house “in vain/without other recourse” (vṛthā). The emphasis is on neglecting the guest prior to the household meal, presenting the lapse as a serious breach of social-ritual duty.
The term “cāṇḍāla” is deployed as a rhetorical intensifier: rather than functioning only as an ethnographic label, it operates here as a textual marker of extreme condemnation. Philologically, the construction juxtaposes the vulnerable status of the traveler (dūrāgata, śrānta) with the household act of eating (bhuṅkte), creating a moral contrast that is typical of aphoristic nīti style.