— The Dhammapada, verse 201 (tr. F. Max Müller, 1881)
About this quote
हिन्दी में
जीत वैर को जन्म देती है, क्योंकि हारा हुआ दुखी रहता है। जिसने जय और पराजय दोनों को छोड़ दिया, वही संतुष्ट मनुष्य सुख से रहता है।
What it means
The first clause is a cause-and-effect claim about winning: victory does not close a conflict, it manufactures a person who now carries a grievance. The mechanism is stated plainly — the beaten party is unhappy, and the hatred follows from that unhappiness, not from anybody’s bad character.
The surprise sits in the second clause, which asks for the surrender of both. Giving up defeat is easy to want; giving up victory is the half readers quietly skip. Contentment is placed outside the pair altogether, so this is not counsel on losing gracefully or winning without gloating — it questions whether the encounter needed a score in the first place.
What it teaches you
After you win an argument at home or at work, spend a minute on the account the other person is now holding, because that account is what you will meet next time and your win is what created it. Where the relationship has to continue, the thing to remove is the scoreboard itself, rather than your position on it.
अर्थ और सीख
पहली पंक्ति कारण-कार्य की बात कहती है: जीत झगड़ा ख़त्म नहीं करती, वह एक हारा हुआ आदमी बनाती है जिसके मन में वैर रह जाता है। चौंकाने वाली बात दूसरी पंक्ति है — हार के साथ-साथ जीत को भी छोड़ देने की बात, यानी सवाल विरोधी का नहीं, हार-जीत के हिसाब का ही है। सीख यह है कि जहाँ रिश्ता आगे भी चलना है, वहाँ जीतने की कोशिश से बेहतर है कि हार-जीत का पैमाना ही हटा दिया जाए।
Where it comes from
This is verse 201 of the Dhammapada, from the chapter called Happiness — living happily without hatred among the hating, and the sweetness of solitude.
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.
