Chanakya Niti — Human Nature, Shloka 8
राज्ञि धर्मिणि धर्मिष्ठाः पापे पापाः समे समाः ।
राजानमनुवर्तन्ते यथा राजा तथा प्रजाः ॥
rājñi dharmiṇi dharmiṣṭhāḥ pāpe pāpāḥ same samāḥ |
rājānam anuvartante yathā rājā tathā prajāḥ ||
When the king is righteous, the people incline strongly to righteousness; when the king is sinful, they incline to sin; when he is even-tempered, they become like him. As the king, so the people.
FAQs
Within the nīti-śāstra tradition, this verse reflects a common premodern political assumption: the ruler’s conduct functions as a public model that shapes administrative practice and popular norms. Such statements are frequently situated in monarchical settings where personal kingship is treated as a central mechanism of social order and moral regulation.
The verse frames the relationship as mimetic and responsive: the populace is portrayed as tending to mirror the king’s ethical orientation (dharma vs. pāpa) or temperament (sama, ‘even/impartial’). The claim is presented as an observational maxim about governance and social behavior rather than a procedural rule.
The construction uses balanced antithesis—dharmiṇi/dharmiṣṭhāḥ, pāpe/pāpāḥ, same/samāḥ—creating a compact parallelism that reinforces causal mirroring. The closing line, “yathā rājā tathā prajāḥ,” functions as a proverbial formula in Sanskrit political discourse, encapsulating the idea of normative diffusion from sovereign to society.
Read Chanakya Niti in the Vedapath app
Scan the QR code to open this directly in the app, with audio, word-by-word meanings, and more.