Shloka 19
Discernment and Wisdom — Chanakya Niti
अन्नाद्दशगुणं पिष्टं पिष्टाद्दशगुणं पयः ।
पयसोऽष्टगुणं मांसां मांसाद्दशगुणं घृतम् ॥
annād daśaguṇaṁ piṣṭaṁ piṣṭād daśaguṇaṁ payaḥ |
payaso’ṣṭaguṇaṁ māṁsaṁ māṁsād daśaguṇaṁ ghṛtam ||
Compared with grain, flour is tenfold; compared with flour, milk is tenfold; compared with milk, meat is eightfold; compared with meat, ghee is tenfold.
FAQs
This verse reflects a pre-modern South Asian tendency to rank foods by perceived potency, nourishment, or strengthening effect. In the broader nīti literature, such observations often appear alongside pragmatic counsel, indicating the circulation of everyday knowledge (including dietetic assumptions) within ethical and political aphorism collections.
The verse conveys gradation through multiplicative comparison (daśaguṇa, aṣṭaguṇa), describing a sequence in which processed or concentrated foods are presented as progressively more potent: grain → flour → milk → meat → ghee, with specified ratios between each step.
Linguistically, the verse uses ablative constructions (annāt, piṣṭāt, māṁsāt) to mark comparison 'relative to' a prior item, and employs guṇa as a quantitative measure. The compact, enumerative style is characteristic of aphoristic Sanskrit, and the ratios function as a schematic assertion of value rather than an empirically demonstrated calculation.