Shloka 17
Learning and Knowledge — Chanakya Niti
अत्यन्तकोपः कटुका च वाणी दरिद्रता च स्वजनेषु वैरम् ।
नीचप्रसंगः कुलहीनसेवा चिह्नानि देहे नरकस्थितानाम् ॥
atyantakopaḥ kaṭukā ca vāṇī daridratā ca svajaneṣu vairam |
nīcaprasaṅgaḥ kulahīna-sevā cihnāni dehe narakasthitānām ||
Signs of one in a “hellish state” are: extreme anger, harsh speech, poverty, enmity among one’s own, association with the base, and service to a family without lineage.
FAQs
In the broader nīti (didactic-ethical) tradition, such verses often catalogue behavioral and social conditions as “signs” of misfortune or moral decline. References to naraka function as part of a pre-modern moral-ritual vocabulary, and terms like kula (lineage) reflect historically salient ideas of social reputation and inherited status in many Sanskritic milieus.
Here, “naraka-sthiti” is framed through observable traits and circumstances—anger, bitter speech, poverty, intra-kin hostility, and socially disapproved associations or service—rather than as a detailed cosmological description. The verse presents a moralized diagnostic list typical of nīti literature.
The construction “cihnāni … narakasthitānām” (“signs … of those in a hellish condition”) uses a diagnostic idiom, treating moral and social phenomena as readable markers on the ‘body/person’ (dehe). Lexemes such as nīca (“low/base”) and kulahīna (“lacking lineage”) encode historically specific social hierarchies, illustrating how ethical evaluation and social classification are interwoven in Sanskrit aphoristic style.