Shloka 16
Governance and Policy — Chanakya Niti
एक एव पदार्थस्तु त्रिधा भवति वीक्षितः ।
कुणपं कामिनी मांसं योगिभिः कामिभिः श्वभिः ॥
eka eva padārthas tu tridhā bhavati vīkṣitaḥ |
kuṇapaṁ kāminī māṁsaṁ yogibhiḥ kāmibhiḥ śvabhiḥ ||
One and the same object is seen in three ways: as a corpse by ascetics, as a beloved woman by the lustful, and as meat by dogs.
FAQs
In the broader nītiśāstra tradition, such verses commonly function as didactic observations about human motivation and perception. The imagery reflects a premodern South Asian moral-psychological framework in which the same stimulus is interpreted differently depending on the observer’s disposition (e.g., ascetic renunciation, erotic desire, or animal appetite).
The verse frames perception as disposition-dependent: the observed “one object” is categorized differently by different observers. Desire (kāma) is implicitly treated as a lens that transforms interpretation, contrasting with ascetic valuation (yogin) and instinctual appetite (dog).
The construction “eka eva padārthaḥ… tridhā” foregrounds a single referent with three interpretive outcomes, a compact rhetorical device typical of Sanskrit gnomic poetry. The triad (yogibhiḥ/kāmibhiḥ/śvabhiḥ) uses social-religious and zoological types to map a spectrum from renunciation to sensuality to raw consumption, with kuṇapa/kāminī/māṁsa serving as starkly contrasting semantic labels for the same perceived body.