Shloka 2
Right Conduct — Chanakya Niti
आत्मवर्गं परित्यज्य परवर्गं समाश्रयेत् ।
स्वयमेव लयं याति यथा राजान्यधर्मतः ॥
ātmavargaṃ parityajya paravargaṃ samāśrayet |
svayam eva layaṃ yāti yathā rājāny adharmataḥ ||
One who abandons their own circle and takes shelter with another faction comes to ruin of their own accord, like a ruler who acts against dharma.
FAQs
Within nītiśāstra literature, the verse reflects concerns typical of early Indian political and courtly environments where loyalty to one’s established network (varga) and patronage ties were treated as stabilizing forces. The comparison to a king acting from adharma situates the warning in a broader discourse on political legitimacy and the maintenance of order through adherence to recognized norms.
The verse frames alignment with one’s “own group” (ātmavarga) as a marker of stability, while shifting to an “other group” (paravarga) is depicted as socially and politically precarious, culminating in “laya” (dissolution/ruin). The formulation presents this as an observed or traditional principle of court politics rather than a personalized instruction.
Key terms include varga (a bounded group or faction) and laya (dissolution, disappearance), which together create a political-social metaphor of disintegration following loss of rooted affiliation. The simile yathā rājā…adharmataḥ links private factional disloyalty to the public consequence of a ruler’s adharma, using dharma/adharma as a period-typical idiom for legitimate order versus destabilizing deviation. Some transmission lines show a possible reading such as anyadharmataḥ, which would shift nuance toward ‘from another/alien norm,’ but the dominant sense remains political deviation leading to decline.