Shloka 7
Practical Maxims — Chanakya Niti
अयुक्तं स्वामिनो युक्तं युक्तं नीचस्य दूषणम् ।
अमृतं राहवे मृत्युर्विषं शङ्करभूषणम् ॥
ayuktaṃ svāmino yuktaṃ yuktaṃ nīcasya dūṣaṇam |
amṛtaṃ rāhave mṛtyur viṣaṃ śaṅkarabhūṣaṇam ||
What is improper for an ordinary man is deemed proper for a ruler; what is proper for the lowly is treated as a fault. Nectar is death to Rāhu, and poison an ornament to Śaṅkara (Śiva).
FAQs
In the broader Nītiśāstra milieu, such statements reflect courtly and administrative environments where rulers were often evaluated by different social standards than non-elites. The verse also mirrors hierarchical assumptions common in premodern South Asian political and moral discourse, where reputation, authority, and social rank could affect how identical actions were interpreted.
The verse frames evaluation as status-contingent: the same conduct may be construed as acceptable when associated with a svāmin (ruler) but censured when associated with a nīca (a socially low-positioned person). This is presented as an observation about prevailing norms of praise and blame rather than as a universal ethical rule.
The couplet uses parallelism and antithesis (ayukta/yukta; amṛta/mṛtyu; viṣa/bhūṣaṇa) to stress contextual reversal. The mythic references function as exempla: Rāhu is a figure associated with hostility toward amṛta in the churning-of-the-ocean cycle, while Śiva’s association with poison (hālāhala) is a well-known motif in which poison becomes a sign of ascetic power and divine distinction.