Upanishads · Yājñavalkya 17
॥
Devanāgarī
यूनश्च परदारादि दारिद्र्यं च कुटुम्बिनः । पुत्रदुःखस्य नास्त्यन्तो धनी चेन्म्रियते तदा
Transliteration (IAST)
yūnaśca paradārādi dāridryaṃ ca kuṭumbinaḥ | putraduḥkhasya nāstyanto dhanī cenmriyate tadā
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
यूनः च पर-दार-आदिyūnaḥ ca para-dāra-ādiand in the youth — others' wives and the rest
दारिद्र्यं च कुटुम्बिनःdāridryaṃ ca kuṭumbinaḥand in the family man — poverty
पुत्र-दुःखस्य न अस्ति अन्तःputra-duḥkhasya na asti antaḥthere is no end to grief from a son
धनी चेत् म्रियते तदाdhanī cet mriyate tadāand if wealthy — then he dies
Translation
And in the youth — others' wives and the rest; and in the family man — poverty; there is no end to grief from a son; and if wealthy — then he dies.
Version
5374d5f44fcc · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The list ends with a precisely aimed blow: dhanī cen mriyate tadā, "and if wealthy — then he dies." That is, the last refuge is taken away: even good fortune ends in death. Let us say plainly that this argument is true and that it cannot be objected to on the merits: everything ends in death, and wealth does not help.
The whole question is what follows from this. Here it follows: do not have a son. This conclusion, to my mind, does not follow. From the fact that everything ends, it does not follow that one should not begin; otherwise one should not have been born either, and the speaker would not have uttered these words.
Let us add what the Vaiṣṇava side draws from the very same circumstance. She draws not a refusal, but a change of goal. If everything ends in death, then an undertaking that ends with the body is an unfinished undertaking; and so one must do what death does not cancel.
The Bhāgavatam speaks of this in a verse cited when reading the first prose line: the fulfillment of all duties, if it does not lead to devotion, is śrama eva hi kevalam, "labor alone, and in vain" (1.2.8). It is worth noting that there, what is condemned is not labor and not family, but futility: the very same thing, done for Him, is not called futile. Hence a son, raised as service, is not, by her reckoning, an endless grief; and Prahlāda, son of a demon, is the finest confirmation of this — the trouble there was not in the son, but in the father.