Shloka 23
Dharma and Wealth — Chanakya Niti
वयसः परिणामेऽपि यः खलः खल एव सः ।
सम्पक्वमपि माधुर्यं नोपयातीन्द्रवारुणम् ॥
vayasaḥ pariṇāme'pi yaḥ khalaḥ khala eva saḥ |
sampakvam api mādhuryaṃ nopayātīndravāruṇam ||
Even as age matures, the wicked remain wicked; the indravāruṇa gourd, though fully ripe and sweet, does not become a noble fruit.
FAQs
Within the broader nīti (didactic) tradition, such verses function as compact observations about character and reliability, reflecting a social world in which counsel to rulers and elites emphasized assessing stable dispositions when managing alliances, servants, and rivals in premodern polities.
The verse presents a conventional claim that certain dispositions—here labeled khala—are treated as enduring traits not reliably altered by age or maturation, using a natural analogy to frame the idea of essential difference rather than developmental transformation.
The construction 'khala eva' intensifies the assertion of fixed identity, while the metaphor contrasts 'mādhurya' (sweetness) with 'indravāruṇa' (a specific gourd) to suggest that ripening can increase a quality within a kind, yet does not change the underlying kind itself—an example of botanical imagery common in Sanskrit gnomic literature.