Shloka 3
Governance and Policy — Chanakya Niti
पुनर्वित्तं पुनर्मित्रं पुनर्भार्या पुनर्मही ।
एतत्सर्वं पुनर्लभ्यं न शरीरं पुनः पुनः ॥
punarvittaṁ punarmitraṁ punarbhāryā punarmahī |
etatsarvaṁ punarlabhyaṁ na śarīraṁ punaḥ punaḥ ||
Wealth can be regained, friends regained, a wife regained, and land regained; but the body cannot be regained again and again.
FAQs
In the Chanakya-nīti tradition, such verses commonly function as compact ethical-political maxims reflecting pre-modern South Asian concerns with household continuity, alliance networks, landholding, and bodily vulnerability. The contrast between recoverable social/material assets and the irreplaceability of the body aligns with broader nīti and dharma literature that foregrounds mortality and the fragility of human life amid political and economic uncertainty.
The verse classifies wealth (vitta), friendship/alliance (mitra), wife as a household role (bhāryā), and land (mahī) as items that may be regained after loss, while treating the body (śarīra) as uniquely non-repeatable. This framing reflects a historical hierarchy of values where social and economic relations are seen as substitutable over time, in contrast to embodied life.
The repeated use of 'punar-' (again) and 'punaḥ punaḥ' creates a rhythmic enumerative structure that emphasizes cyclical recoverability. The final negation 'na śarīram' breaks the pattern, producing a rhetorical contrast. The term 'mahī' carries a dual sense of 'earth' and 'land/territory,' allowing both a general and a polity-linked reading consistent with nīti literature’s attention to resources and territory.