Shloka 14
Virtuous Company — Chanakya Niti
कान्तावियोगः स्वजनापमानं ऋणस्य शेषं कुनृपस्य सेवा ।
दारिद्र्यभावाद्विमुखं च मित्रं विनाग्निना पञ्च दहन्ति कायम् ॥
kāntāviyogaḥ svajanāpamānaṃ ṛṇasya śeṣaṃ kunṛpasya sevā |
dāridryabhāvād vimukhaṃ ca mitraṃ vināgninā pañca dahanti kāyam ||
Separation from one’s beloved, humiliation by one’s own people, the remaining weight of debt, service under a bad king, and a friend who turns away because of poverty—these five burn the body without fire.
FAQs
In the broader nītiśāstra milieu, such verses function as mnemonic summaries of perceived social and political pressures in premodern South Asia—especially dependence on rulers, the vulnerability created by debt, and the fragility of social support under economic strain. The formulation reflects courtly and household concerns typical of didactic anthologies circulating alongside treatises on polity and conduct.
Affliction is framed through five socially situated conditions rather than through metaphysical categories: loss of intimate companionship, intra-group dishonor, unresolved financial obligation, coerced or degrading dependence on an unworthy ruler, and the withdrawal of friendship when poverty alters one’s status. The verse presents these as culturally legible sources of distress.
The phrase “vināgninā … dahanti” (“they burn without fire”) employs a common Sanskrit metaphor where internal or social pain is described in terms of heat or burning. The compound “kunṛpa” (ku- + nṛpa) marks a morally deficient ruler, and the list-form “pañca” signals an aphoristic catalog style characteristic of nīti literature intended for easy recollection and citation.