Shloka 1
Governance and Policy — Chanakya Niti
पृथिव्यां त्रीणि रत्नानि जलमन्नं सुभाषितम् ।
मूढैः पाषाणखण्डेषु रत्नसंज्ञा विधीयते ॥
pṛthivyāṃ trīṇi ratnāni jalam annaṃ subhāṣitam |
mūḍhaiḥ pāṣāṇakhaṇḍeṣu ratnasaṃjñā vidhīyate ||
On earth there are three gems: water, food, and well-spoken words; the foolish, however, bestow the name “gem” on mere fragments of stone.
FAQs
Within the broader Nītiśāstra (didactic) tradition, the verse reflects a common genre of gnomic literature that ranks basic material necessities (water, food) and cultivated communicative skill (subhāṣita) as primary social “treasures.” Such rankings are characteristic of premodern South Asian moral and political discourse, where survival resources and persuasive, measured speech are treated as foundations for social order and governance.
In this passage, “ratna” functions metaphorically rather than as a literal jewel. The verse frames “gems” as what is most valuable for sustaining life and society—water and food materially, and subhāṣita (well-formed speech or wise utterance) culturally—contrasting these with the misvaluation attributed to mūḍha (the ignorant), who label ordinary stones as precious.
The metaphor pivots on ratna as a category of value and on the contrastive pairing of subhāṣita with pāṣāṇakhaṇḍa (“stone fragments”). The diction suggests a critique of superficial valuation: true worth is located in essential resources and refined speech, while misrecognition of value is marked by the misguided attribution (ratnasaṃjñā vidhīyate) of “gem-ness” to what is common.