Chanakya Niti — Power and Prudence, Shloka 7
मूर्खश्चिरायुर्जातोऽपि तस्माज्जातमृतो वरः ।
मृतः स चाल्पदुःखाय यावज्जीवं जडो दहेत् ॥
mūrkhaś cirāyur jāto 'pi tasmāj jātamṛto varaḥ |
mṛtaḥ sa cālpaduḥkhāya yāvaj jīvaṁ jaḍo dahet ||
طویل عمر والے احمق سے بہتر ہے کہ آدمی پیدائش ہی میں مر جائے؛ وہ مر کر تھوڑا غم دیتا ہے، مگر کند ذہن زندہ رہ کر عمر بھر جلاتا رہتا ہے۔
FAQs
Within the Chanakya Niti/gnomic (subhāṣita) milieu, such verses function as compact social judgments that prioritize practical intelligence and self-control as civic virtues. The comparison between premature death and enduring folly reflects a broader early Sanskrit didactic tendency to frame ignorance as socially costly over time, a theme also encountered across niti and subhāṣita compilations.
The verse characterizes 'mūrkha/jaḍa' not as a medical category but as a moral-intellectual type: a person depicted as lacking discernment, whose continued presence is framed as producing repeated or ongoing distress. The contrast implies a valuation of discernment (buddhi/viveka) as a stabilizing social asset in the ethical imagination of the tradition.
The verb 'dahet' ("would burn") is a conventional Sanskrit metaphor for causing torment or consuming distress, extending physical imagery (burning) into social-psychological suffering. The paired oppositions—cirāyu (long life) vs. jātamṛta (stillborn), alpaduḥkha (limited grief) vs. yāvaj-jīvam (life-long)—create an aphoristic structure that intensifies the evaluative contrast typical of niti-style rhetoric.