Shloka 9
Discernment and Wisdom — Chanakya Niti
यस्य नास्ति स्वयं प्रज्ञा शास्त्रं तस्य करोति किम् ।
लोचनाभ्यां विहीनस्य दर्पणः किं करिष्यति ॥
yasya nāsti svayaṃ prajñā śāstraṃ tasya karoti kim |
locanābhyāṃ vihīnasya darpaṇaḥ kiṃ kariṣyati ||
The verse depicts a traditional view that for a person who lacks innate discernment (prajñā), learned treatises (śāstra) accomplish little; it illustrates this through the analogy that a mirror is of no use to one who is without eyes.
FAQs
Within the Chanakya Niti/Nitisara tradition of didactic aphorisms, the verse reflects a common premodern South Asian pedagogical theme: textual learning (śāstra) is portrayed as effective primarily when paired with personal discernment (prajñā). Such formulations circulated in scholastic and courtly milieus where education, counsel, and practical judgment were key concerns in governance and social instruction.
In this verse, śāstra is presented as instrumentally limited: it is treated as a source of articulated knowledge or instruction whose efficacy depends on the recipient’s capacity for understanding. The formulation frames śāstra not as inherently transformative, but as contingent upon prajñā, i.e., an internal faculty of discrimination and comprehension.
The shloka uses a compact interrogative construction ("...karoti kim?" / "...kiṃ kariṣyati?") to underscore futility. The mirror-and-eyes analogy (darpaṇa/locana) functions as a period-typical didactic metaphor: a tool for seeing is useless without the faculty of sight, paralleling how textual authority is depicted as ineffective without the cognitive capacity to apprehend it.