Shloka 9
Virtuous Company — Chanakya Niti
शैले शैले च माणिक्यं मौक्तिकं न गजे गजे ।
साधवो न हि सर्वत्र चन्दनं न वने वने ॥
śaile śaile ca māṇikyaṃ mauktikaṃ na gaje gaje |
sādhavo na hi sarvatra candanaṃ na vane vane ||
Not every mountain holds a ruby, nor every elephant a pearl. So too the virtuous are not found everywhere, just as sandalwood is not in every forest.
FAQs
In the broader nītiśāstra (didactic/political-ethical) tradition of early and medieval South Asia, such verses commonly use natural and economic imagery—gems, elephants, forests, and valuable woods—to frame observations about rarity and social distribution. The formulation reflects a milieu where rubies, pearls, elephants, and sandalwood functioned as recognizable markers of wealth, prestige, and trade, making them effective comparanda for discussing uncommon human qualities.
The verse does not provide a technical definition of sādhavaḥ; it uses the term as a culturally legible category meaning “good” or “virtuous” persons. The principal claim is about scarcity rather than a moral taxonomy: the text presents virtue as comparatively rare, analogous to scarce natural commodities.
The repeated constructions (śaile śaile, gaje gaje, vane vane) are distributive idioms emphasizing “not in every instance,” a common Sanskrit rhetorical technique. The metaphor aligns human moral qualities with rare high-value materials (māṇikya, mauktika, candana), reinforcing the idea of limited occurrence through concrete, period-salient referents.