🧠 Chanakya Niti

Chanakya — also called Kautilya or Vishnugupta — was a teacher at Takshashila and the strategist who placed Chandragupta Maurya on the throne, founding the Mauryan empire (4th century BCE).

He wrote the Arthashastra (on statecraft and economics) and the Chanakya Niti — short verses on how to live, whom to trust, and how power works.

He is often compared to Machiavelli — but he wrote eighteen centuries earlier.

తెలుగులో చదవండి

📖 Verses

On Wealth & Self On People On Knowledge

Wealth, Family, Self

Aapadarthe dhanam rakshet daaraan rakshed dhanair api |
Aatmaanam satatam rakshed daarair api dhanair api ||

Meaning: Guard your wealth against misfortune. Guard your family even with that wealth. But guard yourself always — even at the cost of both.

Note: A hierarchy of priorities. Money matters; family matters more; but your own life, your dharma, your self-respect matter most.

If you survive, everything else can be rebuilt.

Upaarjitaanaam vittaanaam tyaaga eva hi rakshanam |
Tadaagodara-samsthaanaam parivaaha ivaambhasaam ||

Meaning: The way to protect wealth is to give it away — just as the way to keep a tank's water fresh is to let it flow out.

Note: A beautiful image. Water that sits still in a tank turns foul. Water that flows through channels stays clean — and grows crops.

Hoarded money is stagnant water.

Friends, Enemies, Trust

Na kashchit kasyachin mitram na kashchit kasyachid ripuh |
Vyavahaarena jaayante mitraani ripavas tathaa ||

Meaning: No one is permanently anyone's friend, and no one is permanently anyone's enemy. Friends and enemies are made by conduct.

Note: The core of Chanakya's statecraft. Relationships are not fixed — they are made and unmade by behaviour.

So: trust no one blindly as a permanent friend; hate no one as a permanent enemy.

Na vishvaset kumitre cha mitre chaapi na vishvaset |
Kadaachit kupitam mitram sarvam guhyam prakaashayet ||

Meaning: Do not trust a bad friend — and do not fully trust even a good one. For if that friend is ever angered, he may reveal every secret you told him.

Note: This is not cynicism. It is prudence. People change; relationships sour. Do not hand anyone the power to destroy you.

Learning & Wisdom

Kaamadhenu-gunaa vidyaa hy akaale phaladaayinee |
Pravaase maatri-sadrishaa vidyaa guptam dhanam smritam ||

Meaning: Knowledge is like the wish-fulfilling cow — it bears fruit in every season. In a foreign land it is like a mother. Knowledge is wealth that cannot be seen.

Note: Why is knowledge the safest wealth?

Thieves cannot steal it. A king cannot seize it. Fire cannot burn it. And unlike money, it grows when you give it away.

Roopa-yauvana-sampannaa vishaala-kula-sambhavaah |
Vidyaa-heenaa na shobhante nirgandhaa iva kimshukaah ||

Meaning: Though endowed with beauty and youth, though born into a great family — without learning, a person does not shine. They are like the kimshuka flower: brilliantly red, and with no fragrance at all.

Note: The kimshuka (flame-of-the-forest) is one of the most striking flowers in India — and it has no scent.

Beauty and birth are the colour. Learning is the fragrance.

Yasya naasti svayam prajnaa shaastram tasya karoti kim |
Lochanaabhyaam viheenasya darpanah kim karishyati ||

Meaning: What use is scripture to one who has no wisdom of his own? What use is a mirror to a man with no eyes?

Note: Reading is not thinking. Books cannot supply the judgement to use them. Learning without discernment is a mirror held up to a blind man.

📚 Source: Chanakya Niti (Sanskrit original). Transliteration and translation in our own words. Note: some verses in the original reflect 4th-century BCE social attitudes that do not align with modern values; those have not been included here.