Shloka 17
Discernment and Wisdom — Chanakya Niti
का चिन्ता मम जीवने यदि हरिर्विश्वम्भरो गीयते
नो चेदर्भकजीवनाय जननीस्तन्यं कथं निर्ममे ।
इत्यालोच्य मुहुर्मुहुर्यदुपते लक्ष्मीपते केवलं
त्वत्पादाम्बुजसेवनेन सततं कालो मया नीयते ॥
kā cintā mama jīvane yadi harir viśvambharo gīyate
no ced arbhakajīvanāya jananī-stanyaṁ kathaṁ nirmame |
ity ālocya muhur muhur yadupate lakṣmīpate kevalaṁ
tvat-pādāmbuja-sevanena satataṁ kālo mayā nīyate ||
What need have I to worry for my life, if Hari—the sustainer of the world—is sung? Were that sustaining power absent, how would a mother’s milk arise to keep an infant alive? Reflecting thus again and again, O Yadupati, O Lakṣmīpati, I spend my time always in service at your lotus-feet.
FAQs
In the manuscript tradition associated with Cāṇakya-nīti/Nītiśāstra anthologies, some chapters include verses with overt devotional (bhakti) framing alongside aphoristic ethics. This śloka reflects a theistic worldview in which cosmic order and daily sustenance are attributed to a preserving deity (Hari/Vishnu), a motif common in medieval and early-modern Sanskrit didactic compilations that circulated across regions and sectarian settings.
The verse depicts security as arising from confidence in a sustaining cosmic principle personified as Hari. Anxiety (cintā) is represented as unnecessary when the deity is praised and understood as the source of provisioning, illustrated through the naturalized example of maternal milk enabling infant survival.
The śloka uses devotional epithets—Viśvambhara, Yadupati, Lakṣmīpati—to compress theological claims into compact address-forms typical of Sanskrit praise-poetry. The metaphor of mother’s milk functions as an empirical, embodied sign (dṛṣṭānta) for providential sustenance, while “service to the lotus-feet” (pādāmbuja-sevā) employs a conventional bhakti idiom to denote ongoing devotion rather than a literal act.