Shloka 6
Human Nature — Chanakya Niti
यस्य स्नेहो भयं तस्य स्नेहो दुःखस्य भाजनम् ।
स्नेहमूलानि दुःखानि तानि त्यक्त्वा वसेत् सुखम् ॥
yasya sneho bhayaṃ tasya sneho duḥkhasya bhājanam |
snehamūlāni duḥkhāni tāni tyaktvā vaset sukham ||
For one whose affection turns into fear, that affection becomes a vessel of sorrow. Sufferings are rooted in attachment; abandon that root and dwell in ease.
FAQs
Within the broader Chanakya-nīti/Nītiśāstra tradition, such verses function as gnomic reflections used in education and counsel, circulating in manuscript and oral settings across medieval and early modern South Asia. The social backdrop commonly assumed by this literature includes courtly life, household obligations, and political uncertainty, where emotional bonds could be interpreted as potential liabilities as well as social capital.
In this verse, sneha is framed less as a purely positive sentiment and more as an affective bond that can generate vulnerability: it is described as producing fear (bhaya) and serving as a ‘vessel’ (bhājana) for sorrow (duḥkha). The formulation treats attachment as a causal root (mūla) from which various forms of distress are understood to arise.
The metaphor bhājanam (“vessel, container”) portrays sorrow as something that ‘collects’ in attachment, a common Sanskrit poetic strategy for abstract causality. The compound snehamūlāni (“rooted in attachment”) uses mūla (“root”) to express etiological thinking typical of didactic verse, presenting emotional states as having identifiable origins within a moral-psychological framework.