Shloka 2
Virtuous Company — Chanakya Niti
भोज्यं भोजनशक्तिश्च रतिशक्तिर्वराङ्गना ।
विभवो दानशक्तिश्च नाल्पस्य तपसः फलम् ॥
bhojyaṃ bhojanaśaktiś ca ratiśaktir varāṅganā |
vibhavo dānaśaktiś ca nālpasya tapasaḥ phalam ||
The verse describes that provisions for enjoyment (food), the capacity to consume, sexual capacity and a beautiful woman, along with wealth and the capacity to give, are not regarded as the results of minor austerity; the tradition frames them as outcomes requiring substantial ascetic effort.
FAQs
In nīti (didactic-ethical) literature associated with early and medieval Sanskrit textual culture, verses often link worldly capacities—enjoyment, prosperity, and giving—to prior merit and tapas (austerity). This reflects a broader Indic framework in which personal fortune and social standing are frequently interpreted through karmic or ascetic causality rather than purely material explanations.
The verse employs tapas as a causal category for desirable worldly outcomes, presenting a gradation between “minor” and “substantial” austerity. It does not specify practices, but uses tapas as a conventional marker of accumulated merit or disciplined effort that is imagined to yield both personal capacities (e.g., strength/ability) and external resources (e.g., wealth).
The construction pairs objects with corresponding capacities (bhogya with bhojanaśakti; vibhava with dānaśakti), emphasizing that possession alone is incomplete without the ability to use or enact it. The inclusion of varāṅganā alongside ratiśakti reflects a conventional, period-specific register of prosperity and enjoyment (bhoga) in Sanskrit gnomic poetry, documenting elite social imaginaries rather than offering a universal ethical definition.