CHAPTER 81 — लघु-पद-न्यासः | Step Lightly

लघुं पदं न्यस्य; जनानां जीवेषु, समीप-प्राणिनां जीवने, ग्रहे च तव पद-चिह्नानि अल्पीकुरु॥१॥

laghuṃ padaṃ nyasya; janānāṃ jīveṣu, samīpa-prāṇināṃ jīvane, grahe ca tava pada-cihnāni alpīkuru॥1॥

Step lightly; decrease your footprints on people’s souls, neighboring creatures’ lives, and on the planet.

सम्पद् भव; जीवनात् यद् गृह्णासि ततो ऽधिकं देहि॥२॥

sampad bhava; jīvanāt yad gṛhṇāsi tato ‘dhikaṃ dehi॥2॥

Be an asset; give more than you take from life.

संसाधनं भव; सदा त्वत्तो हीन-भाग्या जनाः सन्ति॥३॥

saṃsādhanaṃ bhava; sadā tvatto hīna-bhāgyā janāḥ santi॥3॥

Be a resource; there are always people less fortunate than you are.

आदर्शो भव; जनाः — विशेषेण कनिष्ठ-जीवाः — तदनुसारेण आत्मानं रचयन्ति॥४॥

ādarśo bhava; janāḥ — viśeṣeṇa kaniṣṭha-jīvāḥ — tadanusāreṇa ātmānaṃ racayanti॥4॥

Be an example; people, especially junior souls, pattern themselves accordingly.

हानिं न कुरु॥५॥

hāniṃ na kuru॥5॥

Do no harm.

सुधारक-कर्म तु प्रवाहस्य अनवरोधनं, भविष्यद्-हानि-निवारणाय॥६॥

sudhāraka-karma tu pravāhasya anavarodhanaṃ, bhaviṣyad-hāni-nivāraṇāya॥6॥

Corrective action is unblocking the flow to prevent future harm.

हानिं निवारय, अवाक्-जनानां कृते ब्रूहि, अपाद-जनानां कृते तिष्ठ, हृत-हृदय-जनानां कृते च संघर्षं कुरु॥७॥

hāniṃ nivāraya, avāk-janānāṃ kṛte brūhi, apāda-janānāṃ kṛte tiṣṭha, hṛta-hṛdaya-janānāṃ kṛte ca saṅgharṣaṃ kuru॥7॥

Prevent harm, speak for the voiceless, stand for those without legs, and struggle for those who lost heart.

जनेषु हानि-निवारणाय आवश्यकं चेद्, कौशल्येन हानिं कुरु॥८॥

janeṣu hāni-nivāraṇāya āvaśyakaṃ ced, kauśalyena hāniṃ kuru॥8॥

Inflict harm skillfully when required to prevent harm to the people.

परीक्षको भव॥९॥

parīkṣako bhava॥9॥

Be a skeptic.

व्याकरण टिप्पणियां | Grammatical Notes

Chapter Title and the Three Domains (Verse 1):

• लघु-पद-न्यासः (laghu-pada-nyāsaḥ) - “light step-placing” - the chapter title; laghu (light, gentle, of-small-weight) qualifies pada-nyāsa (foot-placement, stepping); the compound names the practice the chapter teaches — every step (literal and metaphorical) placed with deliberate lightness
• जनानां जीवेषु, समीप-प्राणिनां जीवने, ग्रहे च (janānāṃ jīveṣu, samīpa-prāṇināṃ jīvane, grahe ca) - “on people’s souls, on neighbouring creatures’ lives, and on the planet” - the three locatives name the Wayist triple-ecology of impact: human souls, non-human living beings, and the planet itself; the order is significant — souls first (the highest-stakes impact, since soul-marks persist across lives), then creature-lives (the immediate ethical zone), then the planet (the long-term substrate)
• The verse refuses the false separation between ecological concern and interpersonal ethics — both are pada-cihna (footprint) reduction, the same practice applied to different scales

The Asset / Resource / Example Trinity (Verses 2-4):

• सम्पद् भव (sampad bhava) - “be an asset” - sampad (wealth, prosperity, abundance) used here as a personal identity — be abundance for others, not just have it
• संसाधनं भव (saṃsādhanaṃ bhava) - “be a resource” - saṃsādhana (means, instrument, that-which-accomplishes) similarly applied as identity; the practitioner becomes the means by which others can accomplish what they otherwise could not
• आदर्शो भव (ādarśo bhava) - “be an example” - ādarśa (mirror, model, paradigm) — the same word used in Chapter 72 for the celestial household as divya-ādarśa (divine template); the practitioner participates in the same template-function at the human scale
• कनिष्ठ-जीवाः (kaniṣṭha-jīvāḥ) - “junior souls” - the Wayist developmental hierarchy named: kaniṣṭha (younger, junior, less-developed) qualifies jīva to identify souls at earlier stages of the school of divinity; the chapter’s modeling-responsibility falls especially toward these because they pattern themselves on what they see, not yet having developed the discernment to evaluate the example before adopting it

The Non-Retributive Corrective Ethic (Verse 6):

• सुधारक-कर्म तु प्रवाहस्य अनवरोधनम् (sudhāraka-karma tu pravāhasya anavarodhanam) - “corrective action is unblocking the flow” - the chapter’s distinctive Wayist definition of correction; sudhāraka-karma (corrective action) is defined not as punishment, retribution, or the imposition of consequence, but as pravāhasya anavarodhana (the unblocking of the flow)
• The implicit cosmology: harm exists because some flow has been blocked; the corrective response is not to inflict reciprocal damage but to restore the flow whose obstruction produced the harm; the bhaviṣyad-hāni-nivāraṇa (future-harm prevention) is the purpose of the unblocking, not the satisfaction of past grievance
• The verse separates Wayist correction from retributive ethics decisively — karma in the sense of consequential law operates regardless; the practitioner’s correctional role is anavarodhana (un-blockage), the restoration of flow, not the doing-of-justice

The Four-Fold Solidarity (Verse 7):

• अवाक्-जनानां कृते ब्रूहि, अपाद-जनानां कृते तिष्ठ, हृत-हृदय-जनानां कृते च संघर्षं कुरु (avāk-janānāṃ kṛte brūhi, apāda-janānāṃ kṛte tiṣṭha, hṛta-hṛdaya-janānāṃ kṛte ca saṅgharṣaṃ kuru) - “speak for the voiceless, stand for those without legs, struggle for those who lost heart” - each clause uses the a-X-jana construction (those without X) with the matching action: voiceless → speak, legless → stand, lost-heart → struggle
• हृत-हृदय (hṛta-hṛdaya) - “lost-heart” - hṛta (taken-away, lost) + hṛdaya (heart); the compound names not those lacking heart by nature but those whose heart has been taken from them by circumstance; the practitioner’s saṅgharṣa (struggle) is performed for them, not displacing their agency but creating space for its restoration
• संघर्षं कुरु (saṅgharṣaṃ kuru) - “struggle for” - the established corpus term saṅgharṣa (developmental friction, from Chapter 71) here used in its positive valence: struggling for the lost-hearted is not the foolish self-generated struggle of Chapter 80 verse 8, but the active engagement of friction on behalf of another; the same word, distinct directionality — the friction is for someone’s recovery, not against one’s own development
• The verse establishes the Wayist solidarity ethic: the able lend their faculty to the disabled — voice to voiceless, legs to legless, heart-fortitude to those whose heart has been taken — making the practitioner’s capacities available as resource (resonating verse 3’s saṃsādhana) for those temporarily lacking them

The Skillful Harm-Prevention Verse (Verse 8):

• जनेषु हानि-निवारणाय आवश्यकं चेद्, कौशल्येन हानिं कुरु (janeṣu hāni-nivāraṇāya āvaśyakaṃ ced, kauśalyena hāniṃ kuru) - “when required to prevent harm to the people, inflict harm skillfully” - the chapter’s most theologically sensitive verse, granting conditional permission for protective action that itself involves harm
• The Sanskrit conditional āvaśyakaṃ ced (if required) and the qualifying instrumental kauśalyena (with skill) together make the permission disciplined exception, not general license; kauśalya (skill, expertise) carries the Buddhist-influenced sense of upāya-kauśalya (skill-in-means) — the harm inflicted must be precisely calibrated to the protective purpose, neither greater nor lesser
• The verse stands against two failures: the pacifist failure that permits greater harm by refusing any harm, and the retributive failure that uses protective necessity as cover for excess; kauśalya names the discipline that distinguishes the two
• The verse must be read with verses 5-6: do no harm is the default, corrective action is flow-unblocking is the standard practice, and skillful harm-infliction is the disciplined exception when protection of the people requires it; the three together name a structured ethic, not an ad hoc permission

The Wayist Epistemic Stance (Verse 9):

• परीक्षको भव (parīkṣako bhava) - “be a skeptic” - parīkṣaka (examiner, tester, one-who-investigates) chosen over the more available saṃśayin (doubter) because the verse is not commending doubt-as-state but examination-as-practice
• The Buddhist-influenced sense of parīkṣā (examination, testing — as in the Kālāma Sutta’s instruction to test teachings against experience) is precisely the epistemic stance the verse commends: not credulous acceptance, not cynical rejection, but careful examination
• The placement of this verse last is significant — it closes the chapter by reminding the practitioner that all the preceding instructions (step lightly, be asset/resource/example, do no harm, etc.) must themselves be tested in lived experience, not adopted because written; the chapter teaches its own examination

The Sanskrit of Chapter 81 carries the corpus’s practical-ethics chapter with the compactness the English source maintains. The chapter is short because the teachings are practices — each one a complete instruction in itself — and the Sanskrit honours this compactness rather than padding it. The most theologically loaded moves are the non-retributive definition of corrective action (verse 6, pravāhasya anavarodhana), the conditional permission for skillful protective harm (verse 8, kauśalyena… ced āvaśyakam), and the closing commendation of parīkṣā (examination) as the proper relation to all teaching — including this very chapter.

Colophon: This translation represents the collaborative restoration work of the Wayist collective Salvar Dàosenglu, based on the ancient mahāmārga teaching tradition, rendered into contemporary English and restored to classical Sanskrit for posterity.