Shloka 9
Virtue and Vice — Chanakya Niti
विवेकिनमनुप्राप्ता गुणा यान्ति मनोज्ञताम् ।
सुतरां रत्नमाभाति चामीकरनियोजितम् ॥
vivekinam anuprāptā guṇā yānti manojñatām |
sutarāṁ ratnam ābhāti cāmīkara-niyojitam ||
Qualities, when they dwell in a discerning person, become especially pleasing; as a jewel shines more when set in gold.
FAQs
In the broader Nītiśāstra tradition, such verses commonly frame ethical and intellectual cultivation through courtly and material metaphors familiar to elite settings of early and medieval South Asia (e.g., gems, gold, ornamentation). The statement functions as a compact observation about how personal discernment (viveka) is portrayed as enhancing the social and aesthetic reception of virtues (guṇa).
The verse does not define viveka through a technical taxonomy; rather, it treats the “vivekin” as a recognized type—someone characterized by discriminative judgment. Within the verse’s logic, viveka serves as the enabling substrate that renders existing qualities more “manojña” (pleasing/agreeable), implying a contextual, relational understanding of virtue as perceived through conduct and judgment.
The construction “vivekinam anuprāptā guṇāḥ” presents qualities as ‘arriving’ to a person, a common Sanskrit idiom that personifies abstract attributes. The second line uses an ornamentation metaphor—“ratnam … cāmīkara-niyojitam”—where niyojita (“set/placed”) evokes jewelry-setting technique, suggesting that virtues gain enhanced luster when ‘mounted’ in discernment, much as a gem’s brilliance is amplified by a gold setting.