Public-domain Tulsidas couplet in Hindi reception

The lines परहित सरिस धरम नहिं भाई / परपीड़ा सम नहिं अधमाई are routinely quoted, explained, and memorized in Hindi settings. They come from Tulsidas's public-domain Ramcharitmanas, in the Uttarakāṇḍa, but their language is Avadhi—not an early defective version of Standard Hindi. A good Hindi reader recognizes the couplet while also recognizing its historical grammar (literary; archaic).

The wording below follows a widespread Ramcharitmanas reading. Editions differ in word division (परहित / पर हित, परपीड़ा / पर पीड़ा), in नहिं / नहि, and sometimes normalize धरम to Sanskritic धर्म. Word division is editorial because older manuscript traditions did not impose one modern segmentation. This page preserves धरम and नहिं, since replacing them would erase metrical and historical evidence.

The complete couplet

The English translation supplies “there is,” because neither half has an overt copula. It also turns the compact compounds परहित and परपीड़ा into verbal ideas. A word-for-word SVO parse will fail: these lines are paired nominal comparisons, not sentences in which duty and baseness perform actions.

First line: measuring धर्म against परहित

The core relation is [परहित सरिस] [धरम] [नहिं]: “a duty equal to others' welfare—there is not.” The clause has no expressed है. Copula omission is licensed by the poetic idiom and meter (literary; archaic); learners should not conclude that modern Hindi simply drops है in every negative nominal sentence.

परहित is a compact compound: पर “other” + हित “welfare, good.” In this context it denotes acting for others' good. सरिस means “like, equal to” (literary; archaic). Modern Standard Hindi normally uses जैसा for similarity or a से बढ़कर…नहीं frame for a superlative judgment.

For the productive modern comparison patterns, see comparison with से.

Here जैसा agrees in the masculine singular with धर्म. The negative existential requires कोई…नहीं है, making explicit what the couplet leaves to comparison and negation. The modern sentence is not a correction of the older one; it belongs to a different grammar and register.

धरम reflects a vernacular historical shape. Present-day careful Standard Hindi writes and normally pronounces धर्म dharm. Speakers may still say धरम colloquially or for devotional/literary resonance, but it should be labeled (regional/literary; archaic in this quotation) rather than presented as the formal modern norm.

This modern formulation uses comparison standard से plus बढ़कर. It captures the evaluative force of सरिस…नहिं, though it changes literal “none equal to” into idiomatic “none greater than.”

भाई: addressee, not argument

Final भाई is a vocative. It addresses the listener and is not possessed by धरम, compared with परहित, or governed by a verb. In devotional narration it broadens the maxim into direct counsel. A literal brother can sound narrowly familial in English, whereas the Hindi form can address a companion, listener, or imagined audience.

In contemporary speech, भाई is often (informal) and may signal friendliness, impatience, or male peer address. In this couplet it is (literary; rhetorical). Register comes from the whole utterance, not from a one-word dictionary equivalent.

Second line: exact parallel, moral reversal

The second half mirrors the first:

परपीड़ा is पर “other” + पीड़ा “pain.” The compound is grammatically a noun, but context allows a richer interpretation: not merely “another person's pain,” but causing or taking part in others' suffering. The verse does not encode an explicit agent. Its generality makes every listener potentially responsible.

सम is a Sanskrit-derived indeclinable comparison word (formal/literary). It remains recognizable in formal compounds and quotations, but के समान or जैसा is more productive in ordinary prose.

The oblique infinitive देने plus जैसी expands the compound into an event. Feminine जैसी agrees with नीचता. This explicit syntax helps learners, but it loses the poem's severe collision of the compact nouns परपीड़ा and अधमाई.

नहिं and अधमाई

Modern neutral negation is नहीं. The form नहिं in the couplet is (literary; archaic/regional) and should be read as historical evidence, not normalized in speech practice. Its position before the final predicate noun also participates in the chiasmic feel: the first line ends धरम नहिं भाई, while the second moves नहिं before अधमाई.

अधमाई is an abstract noun built on अधम “base, morally low,” with -आई. Its meaning is “baseness, vileness” (literary/formal). Modern speakers are more likely to choose नीचता, बुराई, or a full predicate such as इससे बुरा कुछ नहीं. There is no need to pretend that अधमाई is an everyday word: understanding it is more useful than forcing it into casual conversation.

This version makes the act an infinitival subject दुख देना and supplies agency through जान-बूझकर. Tulsidas's compact compound remains broader and more aphoristic.

Ten instructive forms

Common Mistakes

Doubling comparison marking

Reading भाई as the subject

Copying copula omission into neutral negative prose

Treating परपीड़ा as an SVO clause

Key Takeaways

• The quoted language is Avadhi received in Hindi, not conversational Standard Hindi.
• सरिस and सम mark equality; नहिं supplies historical negation.
• Final भाई addresses the hearer and is not an argument of the comparison.
• Parallel compounds and omitted copulas make moral opposites sound like a single maxim.

From poetic order to neutral prose

The paraphrase restores author, addressee, reporting verb, copulas, infinitives, and two से बड़ा/बड़ी comparisons. The original does the opposite: it removes agents and finite verbs, balances four abstract nouns, and repeats नहिं. That impersonal symmetry makes the claim sound less like one person's opinion and more like a maxim the audience is asked to carry away.