Chanakya Niti — Governance and Policy, Shloka 17
सुसिद्धमौषधं धर्मं गृहच्छिद्रं च मैथुनम् ।
कुभुक्तं कुश्रुतं चैव मतिमान्न प्रकाशयेत् ॥
susiddham auṣadhaṁ dharmaṁ gṛhacchidraṁ ca maithunam |
kubhuktaṁ kuśrutaṁ caiva matimān na prakāśayet ||
Thuốc đã nghiệm đúng, pháp mình tu, chỗ hở trong nhà, chuyện phòng the, ăn uống sai, và điều nghe học không đến nơi—người khôn không phô bày.
FAQs
Within the broader Nīti-Śāstra milieu, such verses are commonly framed as observations about discretion and reputation-management in household and public life. The listed items reflect domains treated as sensitive in pre-modern South Asian normative literature: health practices, personal religiosity (dharma), domestic security, sexuality, and conduct that could invite social criticism.
In this verse, “dharma” functions as a broad category for one’s religious-ethical commitments and customary observances. The phrasing treats it as a personal matter whose public display could be socially or strategically disadvantageous, reflecting a historical tension between inner practice and outward performance in didactic literature.
The compound “gṛhacchidra” (household + fissure/flaw) uses a concrete image of a structural ‘crack’ to denote vulnerability, aligning domestic space with security concerns. The paired negatives “kubhukta” and “kuśruta” employ the prefix “ku-” (badly/poorly) to group together forms of compromised conduct or deficient acquisition of knowledge, suggesting a catalog of matters considered unfit for public narration in the text’s social register.