Shloka 18
Ethics of Action — Chanakya Niti
असन्तुष्टा द्विजा नष्टाः सन्तुष्टाश्च महीभृतः ।
सलज्जा गणिका नष्टा निर्लज्जाश्च कुलाङ्गना ॥
asantuṣṭā dvijā naṣṭāḥ santuṣṭāś ca mahībhṛtaḥ |
salajjā gaṇikā naṣṭā nirlajjāś ca kulāṅganā ||
A dissatisfied brahmin is deemed ruined; a ruler who is content and complacent is also deemed ruined. A modest courtesan is deemed ruined; and a shameless woman of a respectable household is likewise ruined.
FAQs
In the Nītiśāstra tradition, brief maxims often encode expectations for different social categories (e.g., ritual elites, rulers, courtesans, householders). This verse reflects a pre-modern social and political milieu in which kingship is evaluated through ambition and expansion, while household honor is framed through the idiom of lajjā (modesty/shame); it also mirrors the recognized presence of gaṇikās in courtly and urban settings.
Here santoṣa is treated as role-dependent rather than universally praised: contentment is portrayed as socially dangerous for rulers (implying stagnation or loss of political initiative), while lack of contentment is portrayed as corrosive for dvijas (implying instability, reputational decline, or ethical lapse). The verse thus uses santoṣa/asantoṣa as diagnostic traits within a hierarchical social model.
The verse uses paired antitheses (asantuṣṭa/santuṣṭa; salajjā/nirlajjā) to create a compact, memorable structure typical of didactic Sanskrit. The term mahībhṛt ('bearer of the earth') is a conventional royal epithet, while lajjā functions as a culturally loaded moral-emotional term marking boundaries of status and propriety; the repeated naṣṭa ('ruined') acts as a rhetorical equalizer across disparate social roles.