Vidyā dadāti vinayam: what learning gives
विद्या ददाति विनयं विनयाद् याति पात्रताम् ।
पात्रत्वात् धनम् आप्नोति धनाद् धर्मं ततः सुखम् ॥
vidyā dadāti vinayaṃ vinayād yāti pātratām |
pātratvāt dhanam āpnoti dhanād dharmaṃ tataḥ sukham ||
Translation
Learning gives humility; from humility one comes to worthiness; from worthiness one gains wealth; from wealth, dharma; and from that, happiness.
Meaning
The Hitopadeśa ("Good Advice") is a book of animal fables told to teach statecraft and good sense to princes. Before the stories begin, its introduction praises learning in a string of verses; this is the sixth.
The verse is a chain: each link produces the next, with the ablative case ("from ...") doing the work: vinayāt, pātratvāt, dhanāt. Indian poetics calls this figure kāraṇamālā, a "garland of causes".
Notice that wealth sits in the middle of the chain, not at the end: it is valued as the means to dharma and happiness, and it is reached through humility, not instead of it.
Word by word · 13 words
| Devanagari | IAST | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| विद्या | vidyā | learning, knowledge (nom. sg. f.) |
| ददाति | dadāti | gives (3rd sg. present of √dā) |
| विनयम् | vinayam | humility, discipline, good conduct (acc. sg. m.) |
| विनयात् | vinayāt | from humility (abl. sg.) |
| याति | yāti | goes to, attains (3rd sg. present of √yā) |
| पात्रताम् | pātratām | worthiness (acc. sg. f.; pātra "vessel, worthy recipient" + -tā "-ness") |
| पात्रत्वात् | pātratvāt | from worthiness (abl. sg.) |
| धनम् | dhanam | wealth (acc. sg. n.) |
| आप्नोति | āpnoti | obtains (3rd sg. present of √āp) |
| धनात् | dhanāt | from wealth (abl. sg.) |
| धर्मम् | dharmam | right action, dharma (acc. sg. m.) |
| ततः | tataḥ | from that, then |
| सुखम् | sukham | happiness (acc. sg. n.) |
Pronunciation
vidyā dadāti vinayaṃ vinayād yāti pātratām |
pātratvāt dhanam āpnoti dhanād dharmaṃ tataḥ sukham ||
- pātratām: long ā in the first and last syllable, pāt-ra-tām.
- vinayād yāti: the final t of vinayāt becomes d before y, as written.
- A final visarga ḥ is a soft "h" breath that echoes the vowel before it: namaḥ sounds like "nama-ha" (lightly).
- ṃ (anusvāra) is a nasal: it sounds like m before p/b/m, n before t/d, ṅ before k/g, and a nasalised vowel before s/ś/h.