where not to live - part 2 - धनिकः श्रोत्रियो राजा

Rich man, wise man, ruler, river, and fifth, doctor.
Where these five are not, don't make residence there.

धनिकः श्रोत्रियो राजा नदी वैद्यस्तु पंचमः ।
पंच यत्र न विद्यन्ते तत्र वासं न कारयेत् ॥

dhanikaḥ shrotriyo rājā nadī vaidyastu pañchamaḥ ।
pañcha yatra na vidyante tatra vāsaṃ na kārayet ॥


Continuing from the previous post on where not to live, we come to the next shloka that describes a place where not to live. In the last post we saw that one should not live where there is no respect, livelihood, relatives or knowledge. That was from personal standpoint.

From a social standpoint, one should make sure that five things are present where one wants to move and live, or one should move out if these five are not present.

Financial system

This is what is meant by dhanikaḥ (धनिकः). Today, we need a financial institution like a bank to keep our money safe or to take an occasional loan when needed. We discuss which bank offers better rates on loans, credit cards, mortgages, etc. People engage in revolving credit in a vain attempt to escape interest while still keeping the loan.

In India, even in ancient times, the role of the rich man was important. Śhreṣhṭhī (श्रेष्ठी) means a rich merchant, from which the Hindi word Seṭh (सेठ) and the surname Shetty (शेट्टी), as in Shilpa Shetty, are derived. These come from the Sanskrit word śhreṣhṭha (श्रेष्ठ), meaning "better." India’s highly developed arithmetic and algebra also had a role in debt calculations. Complicated multiplication tables of 1.25 and 1.5 were taught in ordinary Indian schools as recently as three to four decades ago. For better or worse, the rich were needed for drought relief, wedding expenses, and safekeeping.

Educational system

A wise, learned man is what is meant by śhrotriyaḥ (श्रोत्रियः). Śhruti (श्रुति) refers to the Veda (वेद)—that which is heard. A śhrotriyaḥ is one well-versed in the Vedas, which contain not only religious and ritualistic knowledge but also immense wisdom on spiritual matters, human psychology, and social order. Proper study of the Vedas brings discipline in life and self-restraint. Such a wise person is always needed for the education of children, counseling of adults, or performing important life rituals such as birth, weddings, and death ceremonies. In today’s world, this would correspond to places of education and worship.

Legal system

Law and order are represented by the word rājā (राजा). Without an effective ruler, society becomes lawless and anarchic, defeating the goals of social cohesion—safety, prosperity, and peace. Be it external attacks or internal decay, crime, unemployment, or disorder, an effective ruler is necessary. A king is akin to today’s government, though some may argue that a king was even better. The word rājan (राजन्) comes from rajas (रजस्), meaning the active quality (guṇa). Society thrives on action, not renunciation. The renunciate guides, but the king propels. An effective ruler stimulates the economy, creates an environment for fruitful employment and entrepreneurship, and maintains law and order while protecting everyone’s interests.

Transportation and water system

nadī (नदी) means river. All great civilizations have flourished by rivers, and even today, major cities are built near them. In ancient times, rivers were a source of water and transport. Today, they have become industrial waste drains par excellence. Either way, we need good water supply (potable water) and efficient transport systems. Good infrastructure is the backbone of an economy, and clean drinking water is the backbone of life as we know it. It is tragic that today’s rivers are unsuitable even for the worst life forms, and drinking water is available only in plastic bottles—so much for progress.

Charaka चरक - the great sire of Ayurveda आयुर्वेद

Health care system

Vaidya (वैद्य) is a doctor. Āyurveda (आयुर्वेद) is the science of life and health. It is not witchcraft or superstition; it is a long tradition of serious study in medicine, surgery, and cosmetics. Not many people today are aware of the vast volume of Charaka’s (चरक) and Suśhruta’s work, which is among the most actively printed Sanskrit texts today. Interestingly, modern allopathic doctors are among the biggest consumers of these texts.

This fact was revealed to me when I visited a reputed Sanskrit publisher with a list of books marked from their catalog. I was told that most of the books I was looking for were out of print. So I asked, "What is being printed then?" The answer was—course books (for colleges), Āyurveda, astrology, and yoga.

Health is the most important aspect of life. The most extreme form of this truth is life or no life—your world exists only as long as you are alive. When you die, the world dies with you. So, do your best to stay alive! And being alive but not healthy is worse than death—for you have a mind that desires, but a body that cannot fulfill those desires due to poor health. Be it diabetes stopping you from sweets, arthritis from traveling, or obesity from eating, poor health restricts life in countless ways.

These are the basic pillars of a civilized society: financial, educational, legal, infrastructure, and health management.

As mentioned in earlier posts, and as seen in the Hitopadeśha (हितोपदेशः) itself, the compilation of Hitopadeśha borrowed śhlokas of great value from various sources. To ensure the copying was identifiable, the compiler modified a word or two so that the original was not quoted exactly—thus creating some confusion.

Here too, these śhlokas are taken from the Garuḍa Purāṇa (गरुडपुराण) (1.110.26), the last place one would expect to find a full course of subhāṣhitas (सुभाषित) in a Purāṇa! But it is true. What amazes me is that the compiler of Hitopadeśha had such a vast reading, had memorized so many śhlokas, and could recall and apply them as needed for the context. Today, even with search engines like Google and Wikipedia, this is difficult to achieve!

The version in the Garuḍa Purāṇa goes as follows (and means pretty much the same):

dhaninaḥ śhrotriyo rājā, nadī vaidyastu pañchamaḥ |

pañcha yatra na vidyante, na kuryāt tatra saṃsthitim ||

And in Chāṇakya Nīti, it appears as:

dhanikaḥ śhrotriyo rājā, nadī vaidyastu pañchamaḥ |

pañcha yatra na vidyante, na tatra divasaṃ vaset ||

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And now the language aspects of the shloka -

dhanikaH = rich man
dhana = wealth
dhanika = one with wealth

shrotriyo = learned man
shruta = heard
shruti = vedas
shrotra = ears
shrotriyaH = one who is learned (in the vedas)

rājā = rAjA = king

nadī = nadI = river

vaidyastu = vaidyaH + tu
vaidya = medicine man

pañchamaḥ = fifth

pañcha = five
yatra = where
na = not
vidyante = do not reside (plural), vidyati (singular)

tatra = there

vāsaṃ = residence
na = not
kārayet = should do

(c) Shashikant Joshi । शशिकांत जोशी । ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः ।

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Where not to live - यस्मिन्देशे न संमानो

The place where there is neither respect, nor income, or relatives

nor earning of any knowledge, leave that place.

yasmindeśhe na saṃmāno na vṛttirna ca bāndhavaḥ ।
na ca vidyāgamaḥ kaśhcittaṃ deśhaṃ parivarjayet ॥

yasmindeshe na sammAno na vRittirna cha bAndhavaH .
na cha vidyAgamaH kashchittam desham parivarjayet ..

यस्मिन्देशे न संमानो न वृत्तिर्न च बान्धवः ।
न च विद्यागमः कश्चित्तं देशं परिवर्जयेत् ॥

This is said in the Hitopadeśha, when Hiraṇyaka wanted to leave his place and go with his friend, the crow, who was planning to move to a larger lake. In this connection, Hiraṇyaka recites three śhlokas about where one should or should not live. The first one is this.

From a practical standpoint, why do we live in or move to a certain place?

Either we were born there, and our family has been living there for generations. There are people who haven’t left their village for nineteen generations, having lived and died in the same place that was founded when their great-great-great-great-grandfather, nineteen generations ago, stopped there to rest and found it worth settling in! And now, after nineteen generations, it has grown into a small village with its own zip code.

Family keeps us in a place. There are students—or, more accurately, the parents of such students—who decide which college to attend based on its proximity to home rather than solely on its academic merit.

Or, we may move to a place for education. Oh boy, is that news! The majority of youth immigrants in the US are students. Indian students are going to Australia, even in the face of racial attacks, simply because if a US visa isn’t possible, then an Australian one will do. Got to get that degree!

If not for education, then surely for livelihood—a better job moves people across the globe. The US immigration and work permit system is a great example of this. People from all over the world come to the US in search of a better job and to make their dreams come true.

And sometimes, family has passed away or moved away, the job is lost, and there is no further scope for studying, and yet we continue to stay. Why? Because everyone around adores us, loves us, or respects us. So we keep plodding along, even though there is nothing else left for us there.

But if you have none of these four—respect, livelihood, family, or knowledge—then why stay? It’s better to move on!

In the next posts, we will explore other criteria for deciding where to live and where not to.

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And now the language aspects of the shloka -

yasmindeshe na sammAno na vRittirna cha bAndhavaH |
na cha vidyAgamaH kashchittam desham parivarjayet ||

breakup:
yasmin deshe, na sammAnaH, na vRittiH, na cha bAndhavaH
na cha vidyA AgamaH kashchit, tam desham parivarjayet

yaH = that which
yasmin = in that which
deshaH = region, place (nation is rAShTra, not desha)
deshe = in region/place

na = not
sammAno = sammAnaH = samyak + mAnaH
= samyak = complete, whole
mAnaH = respect

na = not
vRittiH = livelihood

na = not
cha = and
bAndhavaH = relatives

na = not
cha = and
vidyAgamaH = vidyA + AgamaH
vidyA = knowledge
AgamaH = inflow, coming in
kashchit = any, some

tam = (to) that
deshaM = (to) region/place
parivarjayet = leave, abandon




(c) Shashikant Joshi । शशिकांत जोशी । ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः ।

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Role of parents in child's education - मातृपितृकृताभ्यासो

The child taught by mother and father becomes qualified.
The child doesn't become learned just by being born.

mAtRi-pitRi-kRitAbhyAso guNitAm_eti bAlakaH |
na garbha-chyuti-mAtreNa putro bhavati paNDitaH ||
hitopadeshH - preface 28

मातृपितृकृताभ्यासो गुणितामेति बालकः ।
न गर्भच्युतिमात्रेण पुत्रो भवति पण्डितः ।।

Indian parents put a lot of stress on education—whatever they can afford, or sometimes even what they cannot afford. This has given Indians an edge almost everywhere they go for higher studies. As the saying goes, "a king is respected only in his own kingdom, but the wise are respected everywhere." To the point that even President Obama urged the US to focus on education. This is also seen in many Asian cultures, where Indian parents support even their child’s college education.

While in the US, I saw many undergraduate students taking all sorts of odd jobs on campus to support themselves, and sometimes it did impact their studies. It is also true that higher education in the US has become exorbitantly expensive for the average Joe.

Continuing from the last post, where King Sudarśhana ponders the pros and cons of hard work and education, here is another śhloka that signifies the role of parents and education in a child's success.

As we have seen in the opening śhlokas of Hitopadeśha, they stress the importance of education and how it nurtures and makes a person worthy in society. Here, we see the role of parents in making a child qualified, worthy, and successful in society.

Merely being born is not enough. A human child is born much before it is ready to survive on its own. Most other animals come into life ready to fight and survive, both oviparous and viviparous. A giraffe baby stands within minutes and trots in a few more! Immediately after hatching, a chick starts to run fast enough to give you a good workout trying to catch it. The parental support required is very little in most animals.

But a human baby needs support, guidance, and help in every aspect of life for a considerable duration. Be it eating, walking, talking, learning skills, or being dropped off for soccer or violin practice—the mother plays a critical role in the beginning (including soccer moms!). Anthropologists say that language was most probably developed by women because while men had to work silently on the hunt, women back in the cave or home would talk with their children and other women to pass the time. There is a reason why it is called "mother tongue."

The mother tells who the father is, the father shows the guru, and the guru shows the divine (God). Hence, this is the sequence in which they are held in reverence. This is also the sequence in which they are important in a person's life. A baby only cares for the mother, a growing child starts to look up to the father, school kids think their parents know nothing compared to their teachers, and once beyond the guidance of a teacher, somewhere along the way, we realize the importance of the divine—when the understanding grows to comprehend the supreme spectacle of all, the glory of the manifest and unmanifest.

So, it is not enough to just take birth. By birth, we are just like animals—food, sleep, fear, and procreation. And after this śhloka, comes another: "A mother who does not educate her child is an enemy, and a father is a competitor."

While it is true that children are like arrows shot from a bow, and we cannot control them (Khalil Gibran), nor should we even try to, it is the paramount duty of parents to make every effort to give the child skills to survive and education to succeed in this world. Parents have the greatest influence on a child.

When parents do this as their duty, children see it and reciprocate with respect and care. Children don’t listen to you; they watch you. How you live is more important than what you say. When parents do this with a sense of burden—worrying about their economic security in old age, their privacy, and their "free will"—children sense it too. And when they grow up, they start looking for glossy brochures of senior homes.

The role of a parent is critical in a child's development—genes at the physical level, education, environment, and care at the mental level.

Don't neglect your children's welfare.

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And now the language aspects of the shloka -

mAtRi-pitRi-kRitAbhyAso =
abhyAsaH = practice, study, training
kRita = done
mAtRi = mother
pitRi = father
kRita-abhyAsaH = who has done abhyAsa
mAtRi-pitRi-kRitAbhyAsaH = one who has been taught, trained, educated (even indirectly) by the mother and father

guNitAm_eti =
guNa = virtue, qualification, skill, etc
guNitAm = learned
eti = goes towards
i.e. goes towards the state of being qualified

bAlakaH = boy, child (for today's inclusive context)

na = not
garbha-chyuti-mAtreNa = merely by coming out of the womb
garbha = womb
chyut = displaced, fallen
achyuta = not fallen, displaced, hence unblemished, name of kRiShNa
chyuti = displacement, fall
mAtra = mere, only
mAtreNa = by merely (-eNa suffix, karaNa 3rd vibhakti)

putro = putraH = son, child
bhavati = becomes, happens
paNDitaH = learned

trailing -aH becomes -o due to sandhi.
so, 'putraH bhavati' becomes 'putro bhavati'

(c) Shashikant Joshi । शशिकांत जोशी । ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः ।

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No substitute for hard work - उद्यमेन हि सिध्यन्ति कार्याणि

as a chariot (cart) can't move with one wheel, similarly, without hard work destiny doesn't bring fruit.

यथा ह्येकेन चक्रेण न रथस्य गतिर्भवेत् ।
एवं पुरुषकारेण विना दैवं न सिध्यति ।। 23

yathA hyekena chakreNa na rathasya gatir_bhavet |
evam puruSha_kAreNa vinA daivam na sidhyati ||

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even if by sheer luck, a treasure is seen lying in front, (as kAka-tAlIya nyAya), destiny doesn't give it in hand, some effort (of picking it up) is (still) expected.

काकतालीयवत्प्राप्तं दृष्ट्वापि निधिमग्रतः ।
न स्वयं दैवमादत्ते पुरुषार्थमपेक्षते ।। 26

kAka-tAlIya_vat-prAptam dRiShTvApi nidhim_agrataH |
na svayam daivam_Adatte puruShArtham_apekShate ||

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work gets accomplished by effort, industry, not merely by wishing. the animals don't enter a sleeping lion's mouth.

उद्यमेन हि सिध्यन्ति कार्याणि न मनोरथैः ।
न हि सुप्तस्य सिंहस्य प्रविशन्ति मुखे मृगाः ।। 27

udyamena hi sidhyanti kAryANi na manorathaiH |
na hi suptasya siMhasya pravishanti mukhe mRigAH ||


in this post we will consider three shlokas, that are all related, to the role of fate and hard work. they appear in hitopadeshaH kathArambham (introduction).

while king sudarshan, strolling on the river bank, pondered upon the two shlokas he heard, and the state of his sons, he was indeed worried. good education is important, and education, dharma, proper thinking is what makes us different from animals. [see previous shlokas from the story here]

and then the other side of rationalizing thoughts popped up in his head. it happens to us all. we know what is right, and then a set of 'arguments' starts cropping up, supporting the easy way out!

How we learn and grow - आचार्यात् पादमादत्ते

One fourth from the teacher, one fourth from own intelligence,
One fourth from classmates, and one fourth only with time.

AchAryAt pAdamAdatte, pAdam shiShyaH swamedhayA |
sa-brahmachAribhyaH pAdam, pAdam kAlakrameNa cha ||

आचार्यात् पादमादत्ते पादं शिष्यः स्वमेधया ।
सब्रह्मचारिभ्यः पादं पादं कालक्रमेण च ॥


This one shloka opens up many facets, related to learning and teaching – be it regular schools or spiritual learning. Modern education system, student-teacher relationship, undue blame on teacher or students for below expectation results.

Let us look at each of the four parts. one learns from four sources - teacher, self, others, and with time (i.e. experience).

This doesn't mean it is exactly one-fourth from each. That may depend upon individual case - how good the teacher, classmates, own intelligence or environment is.

Just like to grow a tree a gardener, good seed, fertile soil and time are needed, so too to learn one needs a teacher, own intelligence, co-students and time (patience, experience).