Chanakya Niti — Liberation and Truth, Shloka 19

Devanagari script

राजा वेश्या यमश्चाग्निस्तस्करो बालयाचकौ ।

परदुःखं न जानन्ति अष्टमो ग्रामकण्टकः ॥

Transliteration

rājā veśyā yamaścāgnistaskaro bālayācakau |

paraduḥkhaṃ na jānanti aṣṭamo grāmakantakaḥ ||

Translation

König, Kurtisane, Yama, Feuer, Dieb und bettelndes Kind — sie kennen das Leid anderer nicht. Der achte ist der „Dornen des Dorfes“: der gesellschaftsschädliche Mensch im Ort.

Word by Word

• राजा (rājā): king

• वेश्या (veśyā): courtesan/prostitute

• यमः (yamaḥ): Yama, death/judge figure

• च (ca): and

• अग्निः (agniḥ): fire

• तस्करः (taskaraḥ): thief

• बालयाचकौ (bāla-yācakau): child and beggar (dual compound, interpreted as ‘a child(-like person) and a beggar’ / ‘a child-beggar’)

• परदुःखम् (paraduḥkham): another’s suffering

• न (na): not

• जानन्ति (jānanti): (they) know/recognize

• अष्टमः (aṣṭamaḥ): the eighth

• ग्रामकण्टकः (grāmakantakaḥ): “village-thorn,” a local nuisance/malefactor

Speaker

• Chanakya (Kautilya)

Tags

• Ancient Ethics
• Political History
• Sanskrit Literature
• History of Political Thought

Entities Mentioned

• King (rājā)
• Courtesan/prostitute (veśyā)
• Yama
• Fire (agni)
• Thief (taskara)
• Beggar (yācaka)
• Village malefactor (grāmakantaka)

FAQs

What is the historical context of this verse?

In the broader nīti-śāstra tradition, such lists function as social typologies used to describe perceived sources of risk, coercion, or indifference within pre-modern public life. The inclusion of the king and punitive/calamitous forces (Yama, fire, theft) reflects a worldview in which authority, disaster, and predation could be experienced as impersonal or unsympathetic to individual suffering, a theme common in didactic and political literature.

How does the text define “grāmakantaka” in this specific verse?

Here grāmakantaka (“village-thorn”) operates as a label for a locally disruptive person—someone framed as a persistent nuisance or danger within a village community. In related Sanskrit political and legal vocabularies, the term can denote habitual offenders or socially harmful actors; in this verse it is presented as an additional category associated with disregard for others’ suffering.

What is the linguistic or metaphorical significance of this shloka?

The compound grāma-kaṇṭaka uses the metaphor of a “thorn” to depict embedded, recurring harm within a community. The verse also juxtaposes human roles (king, courtesan, thief, beggar/child-beggar) with cosmic/elemental agents (Yama, fire), producing a rhetorical catalogue that blends social observation with mythic-natural imagery to emphasize perceived inevitability or indifference.