Shloka 14
Human Nature — Chanakya Niti
ईप्सितं मनसः सर्वं कस्य सम्पद्यते सुखम् ।
दैवायत्तं यतः सर्वं तस्मात्सन्तोषमाश्रयेत् ॥
īpsitaṃ manasaḥ sarvaṃ kasya sampadyate sukham |
daivāyattaṃ yataḥ sarvaṃ tasmāt santoṣam āśrayet ||
All that the mind desires never becomes lasting happiness for anyone. Since everything depends on fate, take refuge in contentment.
FAQs
In the wider niti (didactic) tradition, such verses commonly appear as gnomic reflections circulated in courtly and scholastic milieus, where discussions of human effort (puruṣakāra) and fortune (daiva) were used to frame expectations about success, governance, and personal conduct within hierarchical and uncertain political environments.
Daiva is presented as an external determinant to which outcomes are said to be ‘dependent’ (āyatta). The phrasing suggests a worldview in which desired ends are not fully secured by intention alone, and contentment is depicted as a stabilizing response within that conceptual framework.
The contrast between īpsitam (what is mentally desired) and sampadyate sukham (what actually becomes happiness) uses a rhetorical question (kasya) to generalize human experience. The compound daivāyatta (daiva + āyatta) compresses causality into a single term, typical of Sanskrit aphoristic style, while santoṣa functions as the thematic counterweight to desire.