जलबिन्दुनिपातेन क्रमशः पूर्यते घटः ।
स हेतुः सर्वविद्यानां धर्मस्य च धनस्य च ॥ १२-२२

This above verse occurs in Chanakya Niti shastra. Chanakya or the Kautilya has written two books voz. Artha Shastra and the Chanakya Niti Shastra.

Chanakya niti is about the do’s and don’ts for a layman as well as a King.

The above verse is to be found in 12-22 of Chanakya niti.

First we will see its transliteration, and then we will see its meaning.

jalabindunipātena kramaśaḥ pūryate ghaṭaḥ ।
sa hetuḥ sarvavidyānāṃ dharmasya ca dhanasya ca ॥ 12-22

The meaning is that a pot is filled little by little. Likewise, we should gather or collect dharma, knowledge, and wealth.

Follow a little dharma every day, learn something new, and save a little every day. Over time, you will find out that you have earned them a lot in your life.

Dharma is an Indic term, and Swami Vivekananda himself found it difficult to translate. He said that it could be said to be your duty. One should read his Karma Yoga lectures to understand this concept better.

We may be in different life stages, like a student, a married man, a man who had now his sons to take care of his business and is spending time in a semi-retirement stage, and the one who totally renounces his work in pursuit of the soul.

These four stages are called the Brahmacharya, Grahastha, Vanaprastha, and lastly the Sanyasa.

The rules for each stage are different, and the duties for each stage are different. Dharma means different things to different people. But the idea is that one that takes you near to your goal is dharma.

We cannot be idealistic and set unachievable targets for ourselves. We have to be idealistic as well as pragmatic. We can roughly say that dharma is about achieving the best possible outcome in a given situation.

The wealth earned through dharma alone would give you everlasting happiness. So we should forever walk in the path of dharma.

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