Niti Sangraha

Here's a comprehensive summary of the Jain text "Niti Sangraha" by Durgaprasad, based on the provided pages:

Book Title: Niti Sangraha (नीतिसंग्रहः) Author: Durgaprasad (दुर्गाप्रसाद) Publisher: Virjanand Yantralay (विर्जानन्द-यंत्रालये) Catalog Link: https://jainqq.org/explore/020511/1

Overall Purpose and Content:

"Niti Sangraha" is a Sanskrit compilation of ethical maxims, moral teachings, and worldly wisdom. It's presented as a collection for the propagation of Sanskrit language, compiled by Durgaprasad and printed at the Virjanand Press. The text aims to provide guidance on righteous conduct, personal development, and practical aspects of life through a series of pithy Sanskrit verses (shlokas), each followed by its Hindi translation and an English rendering.

Key Themes and Teachings:

The "Niti Sangraha" covers a wide range of subjects related to virtuous living and practical wisdom. Some of the prominent themes and teachings include:

• The Importance of Timely Action and Self-Improvement: The text emphasizes acting for one's well-being while healthy and that death is distant, as one will be helpless at the end of life.
• The Value of Virtuous Offspring: A single virtuous and learned son can bring happiness to the entire family, akin to how the moon brightens the night.
• Contentment and Non-Attachment: While contentment in one's wife, food, and wealth is commendable, the text advises against complacency in study, prayer, and charity.
• The Hardships of Life: The book lists troubles such as the death of a wife in old age, wealth passing to others, and dependence on others for sustenance.
• The Necessity of Self-Intelligence: Without innate intelligence, scriptures are useless, just as a mirror is useless to someone without eyes.
• The Power of Consistent Effort: Small, consistent efforts, like filling a pitcher drop by drop, lead to success in knowledge, religion, and wealth. The saying "Slow and steady wins the race" is invoked.
• The True Decorators of Life: Charity adorns the hand more than a bracelet, bathing brings purity more than sandalwood paste, honor provides satisfaction more than food, and wisdom leads to salvation more than external decoration.
• Identifying and Avoiding Bad Company: The text warns against those who appear virtuous outwardly but harm others behind their backs and are constantly bent on wicked deeds, advising to discard such "bad friends."
• The Immutability of Nature: Advice cannot change one's inherent nature, just as hot water eventually becomes cold again.
• The Role of Effort vs. Fate: Wealth comes to the energetic. Those who only blame fate are called cowardly. One should exert oneself with courage, and if success doesn't come, it's not their fault. Works are achieved through exertion, not just wishes, as sleeping lions do not have deer enter their mouths.
• The Dangers of Vulnerable Situations: The text highlights precarious situations such as a field by a riverbank, a wife associating with others, and living in a house with snakes, all of which lead to lack of peace.
• True Goodness: Goodness is not in being good to those who have helped you, but in being good to those who have wronged you.
• The Need for Two Hands: Just as applause requires two hands, success in action requires sustained effort.
• The Effort for Sustenance: Even food at mealtime doesn't enter the mouth without the effort of hands; it's obtained through action.
• Wisdom in Action: Wise individuals are those who act after careful consideration with learned friends and their own intellect, earning wealth and fame.
• Avoiding Conflict with the Powerful: A weak person seeking prosperity should not even consider quarreling with a powerful person, as it leads to certain ruin.
• Unreliable Virtues: The text humorously questions where purity is found in a crow, truth in a gambler, courage in a coward, philosophical thought in a drunkard, calmness in a serpent, compassion in a flesh-eater, or a prince as a friend.
• The Futility of Advice to the Ignorant: Advising fools leads to anger, not peace, just as feeding milk to snakes only increases their venom.
• Ephemeral Friendships: Friendship in the world lasts only as long as something is given.
• Predetermined Destinies: A person's age, deeds, wealth, knowledge, and death are ordained from the womb.
• Fruits of Various Endeavors: The fruits of the Vedas are sacrifices, the fruit of conduct is good behavior, the fruit of a wife is pleasure and children, and the fruit of wealth is charity and enjoyment.
• Contentment as Supreme Wealth: Serpents and elephants sustain themselves without much. Contentment is man's greatest treasure. There is no hoard like charity, no enemy like avarice, no jewel like modesty, and no wealth like contentment.
• The Rarity of Truthful Friends: Easily found are friends who speak sweet words, but rare are those who speak and hear unpleasant truths for ultimate good.
• The Consequences of Harmful Actions: If heaven is attained by harming nature and animals, then who goes to hell? Those who speak falsely for honor, greed, or fear go to hell.
• The Ideal Wife: A man is fortunate if his wife is chaste, devoted, and takes delight in his welfare.
• The Wife as the Home: A house is not a home; the wife is the home. A house without a wife is like a wilderness.
• The Fruits of One's Own Faults: Poverty, disease, trouble, attachment, and folly are the fruits of one's own faults.
• The Danger of Betraying Secrets: Those who don't guard each other's secrets are destroyed, like serpents in an ant-hill.
• Criteria for Marriage: Wise individuals should consider seven qualities in a groom before marriage: family, nature, guardianship, knowledge, wealth, health, and age.
• Misjudgment of Good and Bad: Destruction awaits those who mistake friends for enemies, hate friends, see good as bad, and vice as virtue.
• Causes of Suffering: Diseases afflict those with bad diets, political errors befall princes with bad ministers, fortune turns the heads of many, death claims all, and indulgence in habits pains individuals.
• True Living: True living is defined by knowledge, valor, fame, and honor, not just a long life that receives sustenance like a crow.
• Sources of Strength: A king is the strength of the weak, weeping of a child, silence of the ignorant, and lying of a thief.
• The Growth of Knowledge: A man's understanding and appreciation for knowledge grow as he studies.
• Facing Fear: Fear should be faced with bravery once it has arrived, not before.
• Righteous Living: Eat what is earned honestly. The wise are those who do no sin. Friendship endures absence. Religion is practiced without fraud.
• The Importance of Diligence: Those who are lax in their work will find others to be the same. Those who are diligent in their tasks will have helpers like them.
• The Futility of Unprotected Wealth: The greatest fool is one who knows how to earn but not protect, making the earning effort vain.
• Entrusting Valuables: A young woman, money, and a book should never be entrusted to others, as they may be spoiled if recovered.
• The Ornament of Character: True adornment comes from good character, not just jewels, royalty, courage, knowledge, or wealth.
• Sources of Unhappiness: An ignorant child, a quarrelsome wife, poverty, serving mean people, and constant debt are six things that do not bring happiness.
• Speaking Wisely: Speak like the elders, never like children. Do not stare at women in another's house.
• Natural Friends: Knowledge, bravery, dexterity, strength, and patience are considered natural friends.
• The Essence of Society and Righteousness: A society without elders is not a society. Elders are those who speak of righteousness. Righteousness contains truth. Truth is unmixed with fraud.
• Avoiding Obstacles to Well-being: Excessive sleep, carelessness, timidity, anger, laziness, addiction, and excessive pride should be abandoned by those seeking well-being.
• Prudent Communication and Learning: Speak after thinking. Take good qualities even from an enemy and reject bad qualities even from a teacher.
• Conduct During Travel and Conversation: Do not eat while walking. Do not talk with laughter. Do not grieve over what is lost. Do not praise your own deeds.
• Aspirations Based on Status: The low desire wealth, the middling desire wealth and honor, and the high desire honor, for honor is the wealth of the great.
• The Dignity of Good Families: Lions, even when hungry, do not stoop to pick up insignificant things. People born in good families never do mean deeds.
• The Corrupting Influence of Bad Company: Even good people are spoiled by the company of the bad, just as clear water is made turbid by mire.
• Association with the Virtuous: One should always deal with, keep company with, and make friends with the good, and have nothing to do with the bad.
• Spiritual Life: Worldly people commit evils even in forests. The home can be a place for controlling the senses. For the detached, the home is a place of worship.
• True Adornment: Knowledge adorns men, a wife adorns the home, the moon adorns the sky, and good manners adorn all.
• The Nature of True Knowledge: True knowledge does not decrease; it increases when shared, like water in a well.
• The Transience of Life and Relationships: Just as birds gather at night on a tree and disperse in the morning, so too relationships and life are transient.
• The Mystery of Existence: The origin and end of creatures are unknown; only their middle existence is known, so why lament?
• The Inevitability of Death: One whose time has not come does not die, even when pierced by arrows. One whose time has come dies even from a touch of grass.
• The Consequences of Past Actions: Past actions follow their doer, just as a calf finds its mother amidst thousands of cows.
• Defining Happiness and Sorrow: Dependence leads to sorrow, and independence leads to happiness.
• The Unavoidable Nature of Karma: Man cannot escape the consequences of his actions, whether in the atmosphere, sea, mountains, or womb.
• The Cycle of Life: Pleasure and pain revolve around humans like a wheel.
• Innate Kingship: A lion's kingship is not conferred by ceremonies but is inherent. Similarly, natural greatness arises from inherent qualities.
• Uprooters of Sorrow: An obedient son, knowledge that brings wealth, health, company of good people, and a desirable, obedient wife are the five things that eradicate sorrow.
• The Five Senses and Their Dangers: Animals are destroyed by enslavement to one sense. How much more vulnerable is a person enslaved by all five senses?
• God's Gifts: Age, fame, wealth, knowledge, intellect, wife, health, strength, good temper, beauty, friends, and offspring are gifts from God.
• The Stability of Virtue: Life, wealth, and youth are unstable, but virtue, fame, and beneficence are stable.
• The Difference Between Humans and Beasts: What is the difference between a man who doesn't consider good and bad, argues excessively about doing good, and is satisfied with filling his stomach, and a beast?
• The Humility of the Virtuous: Fruit-laden trees bend, and meritorious people are humble. Dry trees and ignorant people do not bend and are destroyed.
• The Mind as Master: The body is subject to the mind. When the mind is disturbed, the tissues waste away. Therefore, the mind should always be guarded for sound physical health.
• Acquiring Wealth: Great wealth is rarely acquired instantly without cunning. No one becomes truly rich without taking from others.
• Kings and Conquest: Kings sometimes consider seizing others' property a great duty, leading to wars and loss of life.
• The Slavery to Wealth: Man is a slave to wealth, but wealth is not a slave to anyone. Therefore, one should always strive for wealth with diligence.
• Causes of Poverty: Excessive charity, penance, and truthfully making money can lead to poverty. Useless talk is that which lacks righteousness and benefit.
• Self-Destruction: He ruins himself who hates the wise, delights in cheats, and is unaware of his own faults.
• The Peril of Independence: One who acts willfully without regard for justice suffers trouble. Serving an absolute master is like licking the edge of a sword.
• Duty as Piety: There is no ease without fulfilling one's duty. Performing one's duty is great penance, which leads to prosperity.
• Caste and Qualifications: Caste is not determined by birth but by qualifications and professions.
• The Nature of a Brahmana: A Brahmana is defined by knowledge, religious works, worship, contentment, self-control, and kindness.
• The Nature of a Kshatriya: A Kshatriya is skilled in protecting people, brave, self-controlled, valorous, and adept at controlling the wicked.
• The Nature of a Vaishya: Vaishyas are those expert in trade, living by commerce, tending cattle, and farming.
• The Nature of a Shudra: Shudras are those who serve the other castes, engage in worship, are brave, contented, control their senses, and perform menial tasks like carrying plows, fuel, and grass.
• The Nature of a Mleccha: Mlecchas are those who abandon their religion, are cruel, oppress others, are quarrelsome, and are always violent and uncivilized.
• The Organs of Government: The eye is the minister, the ear the ally, the tongue the treasure, the will the army, the hands the fort, and the feet the dominion.
• The Importance of Leadership: Without a good leader (king), subjects are ruined, like a boat sinking without a pilot.
• Resolving Debts and Enemies: Debts, lingering diseases, and remaining enemies should not be left unattended. Tasks should be completed or delegated.
• Criteria for Marriage: Examine the family, then knowledge, age, disposition, wealth, beauty, and finally the country before marriage.
• The Superiority of Knowledge: The wealth of knowledge is superior to material wealth and is the source of earning other wealth. It grows with giving and cannot be lost or stolen.
• Respect Based on Wealth: Wealth commands respect from all. Without wealth, even the virtuous are abandoned.
• Acquiring Knowledge Diligently: Knowledge should be acquired diligently, moment by moment. Time should not be wasted by those seeking knowledge.
• Destroyers of Wealth: Falsehood, cruelty, ingratitude, fear, carelessness, laziness, quarrels, pride, and vices like adultery and gambling are destroyers of wealth.
• The Path to Wisdom: Wisdom arises from the destruction of sin, allowing one to see the Self within, as in a mirror.
• The Source of Joy and Sorrow: One suffers by following the senses and finds joy by controlling them.
• The Hierarchy of Being: The will is beyond the senses, intellect is beyond the will, wisdom is beyond the intellect, and the Great (God) is beyond wisdom.
• The Cycle of Manifestation: Wisdom proceeds from the invisible, then intellect, then the mind, which interacts with the senses to perceive the world.
• Attaining Immortality: Forsaking worldly objects and perceptions leads to immortality.
• Ways of Perception: Animals see with the nose, scholars with Vedas (knowledge), kings through spies, and ordinary people with eyes.
• Devotion to God: Man should worship only God, the Lord of heaven and earth, with sincere faith and great devotion, understanding Vedic mantras.
• Auspiciousness: Auspiciousness is attributed to God, living beings, and the acquisition of knowledge that leads to great happiness.

Publisher and Publication Details:

The book was published by Virjanand Yantralay. The catalog link suggests it might be a scanned edition from the Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra.

In essence, "Niti Sangraha" is a practical guide to living a virtuous and successful life, drawing upon timeless wisdom and ethical principles. It aims to equip the reader with the knowledge and foresight to navigate the complexities of existence with righteousness and sagacity.