Shloka 3
Discernment and Wisdom — Chanakya Niti
सुखार्थी चेत्त्यजेद्विद्यां विद्यार्थी चेत्त्यजेत्सुखम् ।
सुखार्थिनः कुतो विद्या सुखं विद्यार्थिनः कुतः ॥
sukhārthī cet tyajed vidyāṃ vidyārthī cet tyajet sukham |
sukhārthinaḥ kuto vidyā sukhaṃ vidyārthinaḥ kutaḥ ||
If you seek comfort, you will abandon learning; if you seek learning, you will abandon comfort. How can the comfort-seeker gain knowledge? How can the knowledge-seeker gain comfort?
FAQs
In the wider Nīti (didactic) literature of classical South Asia, verses commonly frame learning as requiring discipline, time, and restraint. This shloka reflects a pedagogical and social ideal in which sustained study is associated with austerity and deferred gratification, a theme found across scholastic and advisory traditions rather than tied to a single political event.
The verse depicts sukha (comfort/pleasure) and vidyā (learning/knowledge) as competing pursuits: prioritizing immediate ease is portrayed as obstructing sustained study, while prioritizing study is portrayed as limiting immediate ease. The formulation is presented as a generalized observation about human aims and trade-offs.
The construction uses paired conditionals (…cet…) and parallel rhetorical questions (kutaḥ) to create symmetry and emphasis. The key terms are abstract nouns personified through agentive compounds—sukhārthin (“one who seeks sukha”) and vidyārthin (“one who seeks vidyā”)—a common Sanskrit didactic technique for typologizing human motivations.