— The Dhammapada, verse 349 (tr. F. Max Müller, 1881)
About this quote
हिन्दी में
जो मनुष्य संदेहों में डोलता रहता है, तीव्र रागों से भरा है, और केवल सुखकर वस्तुओं की ही चाह रखता है, उसकी तृष्णा और-और बढ़ती जाती है — और वह अपने बंधनों को स्वयं और मज़बूत कर लेता है।
What it means
This is a mechanism, not a scolding. Three conditions are listed — being tossed by doubt, strong passion, and yearning only for what is delightful — and one consequence follows: the thirst grows. The counterintuitive claim sits there plainly: pursuing what is pleasant does not reduce wanting, it enlarges it. Satisfaction is described as the thing that feeds the appetite rather than settles it.
The last clause is what makes the verse hold up. The fetters are not imposed by fate, a god, or other people — he makes them strong. The bondage is manufactured by the same activity that feels like seeking relief, which is why the verse names doubt alongside passion: an unsettled mind and an appetite for the pleasant are treated as parts of one process, not separate faults.
What it teaches you
Judge an appetite by its size over a year, not by whether a particular indulgence satisfied you that evening — the verse makes a testable claim, that the wanting is measurably larger after being fed. If some want of yours has kept the same shape for years, this verse is not describing it; if the threshold keeps rising, it is, and no amount of further supply is going to be the thing that ends it.
अर्थ और सीख
यह पद एक प्रक्रिया बताता है: संदेह में डोलता मन, तीव्र राग, और केवल सुख की चाह — इन तीनों से तृष्णा घटती नहीं, बढ़ती है। सबसे तीखी बात अंत में है कि बंधन कोई बाहर से नहीं डालता, आदमी उन्हें खुद कसता है। सीख यह कि किसी इच्छा को एक शाम की तृप्ति से मत आँकिए, बल्कि देखिए कि साल भर में उसकी माँग बड़ी हुई या नहीं।
Where it comes from
This is verse 349 of the Dhammapada, from the chapter called Thirst — tanha, craving — the creeping vine whose root must be cut by knowledge.
The Dhammapada is a collection of 423 verses in Pali, among the oldest and most widely read records of the Buddha’s teaching. This English translation is by F. Max Müller (1881), the pioneering Oxford scholar of Indian texts; the verse number is cited with this quote.
