Shloka 16
Virtue and Vice — Chanakya Niti
तृणं लघु तृणात्तूलं तूलादपि च याचकः ।
वायुना किं न नीतोऽसौ मामयं याचयिष्यति ॥
tṛṇaṃ laghu tṛṇāt tūlaṃ tūlād api ca yācakaḥ |
vāyunā kiṃ na nīto'sau mām ayaṃ yācayiṣyati ||
Grass is light; cotton is lighter than grass; and a beggar is lighter still than cotton. Why does the wind not carry him off? If it does not, he will return to beg from me again.
FAQs
Within the broader nīti-śāstra tradition, such verses are commonly situated in settings where patronage, petitioning, and dependence form visible parts of courtly and household economies. The rhetoric reflects a social world in which repeated solicitation was a recognizable phenomenon and could be framed through satirical or hyperbolic comparisons.
The verse characterizes the yācaka (supplicant) through a metaphor of extreme lightness and mobility, presenting solicitation as persistent and recurring. Rather than offering a procedural definition, it records a conventional portrayal of the supplicant as continually returning to request support.
The comparison (tṛṇa → tūla → yācaka) uses a common Sanskrit device of escalating analogy to intensify a claim. The wind (vāyu) functions as a natural-force metaphor for removal or dispersal, and the rhetorical question (kiṃ na…?) amplifies the satire by implying that only an external force would prevent renewed solicitation.