Shloka 13
Human Nature — Chanakya Niti
देहाभिमाने गलितं ज्ञानेन परमात्मनि ।
यत्र यत्र मनो याति तत्र तत्र समाधयः ॥
dehābhimāne galitaṃ jñānena paramātmani |
yatra yatra mano yāti tatra tatra samādhayaḥ ||
When identification with the body dissolves through knowledge of the supreme Self, wherever the mind moves, there too is samādhi.
FAQs
In the broader Sanskrit aphoristic tradition associated with nīti collections, this verse reflects the circulation of renunciant and yogic vocabulary (e.g., jñāna, paramātman, samādhi). Historically, such themes indicate overlap between pragmatic ethical anthologies and wider intellectual currents in which self-knowledge and detachment from bodily identity were treated as markers of disciplined insight.
Self-identification is framed as देहाभिमान (dehābhimāna), an “ego-sense” or appropriation centered on the body. The verse characterizes its cessation as a result of ज्ञान (jñāna) oriented toward परमात्मन् (paramātman), presenting a conceptual movement from embodied self-construal to a more universalized self-principle.
The key metaphor is गलितं (“melted/dissolved”), which depicts dehābhimāna as something that can liquefy and disappear under the influence of knowledge. The paired repetition यत्र यत्र / तत्र तत्र (“wherever… there…”) functions as a distributive construction, emphasizing omnipresence: once the mind is no longer constrained by bodily ego-sense, samādhi is depicted as arising in any locus the mind reaches.