Ācāra-Nirṇaya: Varṇa-Āśrama Dharma, Śauca, Snāna, Sandhyā, Japa, Tarpaṇa, and Gṛhastha-Dinacaryā
विद्या शिल्पं भूतिः सेवा गोरक्षा विपणिः कृषिः / वृत्तिर्भैक्ष्यं कुसीदं च दश जीवनहेतवः
vidyā śilpaṃ bhūtiḥ sevā gorakṣā vipaṇiḥ kṛṣiḥ / vṛttirbhaikṣyaṃ kusīdaṃ ca daśa jīvanahetavaḥ
ပညာ၊ လက်မှုအတတ်၊ စည်းစိမ်ဥစ္စာ၊ အမှုထမ်းခြင်း၊ နွားကာကွယ်စောင့်ရှောက်ခြင်း၊ ကုန်သွယ်ရေး၊ စိုက်ပျိုးရေး၊ မိမိအလုပ်အကိုင်ဖြင့် အသက်မွေးခြင်း၊ ဘိက္ခာတောင်းခြင်း၊ နှင့် ချေးငွေပေးခြင်း—ဤတို့သည် လူတို့၏ အသက်ရှင်ရေးကို ထောက်ပံ့သော နည်းလမ်း ဆယ်ပါး ဖြစ်သည်။
Lord Vishnu (in discourse to Garuda/Vinatā-putra)
Concept: Ten life-supporting means (jīvana-hetavaḥ) legitimize varied livelihoods within a dharmic framework.
Vedantic Theme: Svadharma and guna-karma: diverse functions in society can be sattvic when performed rightly.
Application: Recognize dignity of multiple livelihoods; choose a means suited to capacity and ethics; avoid exploitative forms (e.g., usury) unless regulated by dharma and compassion.
Primary Rasa: shanta
Secondary Rasa: adbhuta
Related Themes: Garuda Purana (livelihood/varna duties cluster in this adhyaya; follow-up verse assigns varna-appropriate earning)
This verse classifies ten recognized supports of life, implying that earning and sustaining oneself is a dharmic concern and should be understood as part of righteous conduct.
By listing acceptable means of sustenance, it frames daily earning as karma that can be aligned with dharma; livelihood choices shape one’s merit and ethical standing.
Choose a livelihood that sustains life without harming others, value skill and honest work, and treat wealth and commerce as responsibilities governed by ethics.