Shloka 10
Liberation and Truth — Chanakya Niti
न दानैः शुध्यते नारी नोपवासशतैरपि ।
न तीर्थसेवया तद्वद्भर्तुः पदोदकैर्यथा ॥
na dānaiḥ śudhyate nārī nopavāsaśatair api |
na tīrthasevayā tadvad bhartuḥ padodakair yathā ||
A woman is not said to be purified by gifts, not even by a hundred fasts, nor likewise by serving at pilgrimage places; rather, in this tradition, by the water that has washed her husband’s feet.
FAQs
In the broader nīti (didactic-ethical) literature, verses often reflect normative household and social hierarchies current in parts of premodern South Asia. This śloka is typically read as participating in a discourse that links women’s ritual status to marital relations and domestic authority, while also referencing widely recognized religious practices such as dāna (charity), upavāsa (fasting), and tīrtha-sevā (pilgrimage observance).
The verse uses śudhyate/śuddhi in a ritual-ideological sense—i.e., a culturally coded notion of cleansing or merit-bearing purification—rather than as physical cleanliness. It contrasts several recognized merit practices (charity, fasting, pilgrimage service) with a domestically framed act (water associated with a husband’s feet), indicating a hierarchical valuation within the tradition represented by the text.
The construction is a sequence of negations (na… na… na…) culminating in a comparative assertion (…yathā), a common aphoristic style in nīti texts. The compound padodaka (“foot-water,” i.e., water from washing feet) functions as a culturally loaded metonym for reverence and domestic subordination; tīrtha-sevā invokes the prestige of pilgrimage institutions, creating a contrast between public religious merit and household-centered religious valuation.