Shloka 13
Education and Conduct — Chanakya Niti
यो ध्रुवाणि परित्यज्य अध्रुवं परिषेवते ।
ध्रुवाणि तस्य नश्यन्ति चाध्रुवं नष्टमेव हि ॥
yo dhruvāṇi parityajya adhruvaṃ pariṣevate |
dhruvāṇi tasya naśyanti cādhruvaṃ naṣṭam eva hi ||
Whoever abandons the stable and pursues the unstable loses the stable; and the unstable is, in truth, already lost.
FAQs
In the Chanakya Niti tradition, such aphorisms are commonly situated within early South Asian didactic literature (nīti-śāstra), where concise couplets frame prudential reasoning about stability, reputation, wealth, alliances, and other valued forms of continuity. The opposition of dhruva/adhruva reflects a broader classical idiom used to evaluate reliability and risk in personal and political life.
The verse employs the paired terms dhruva (stable, reliable, enduring) and adhruva (unstable, unreliable, impermanent) as evaluative categories rather than narrowly defined technical terms. In this formulation, prioritizing adhruva is portrayed as producing a double loss: the relinquished dhruva is said to be forfeited, while the pursued adhruva is characterized as inherently prone to loss.
The rhetoric hinges on antithesis (dhruva vs. adhruva) and parallel structure across the two lines, creating a compact causal claim. The verb pariṣevate (“to associate with, attend to, cultivate”) carries social and political connotations in classical Sanskrit, allowing the couplet to be read as applicable to attachments, pursuits, or alliances within a nīti framework.