Shloka 1
Qualities of the Wise — Chanakya Niti
कस्य दोषः कुले नास्ति व्याधिना को न पीडितः ।
व्यसनं केन न प्राप्तं कस्य सौख्यं निरन्तरम् ॥
kasya doṣaḥ kule nāsti vyādhinā ko na pīḍitaḥ |
vyasanaṃ kena na prāptaṃ kasya saukhyaṃ nirantaram ||
The verse presents a generalized observation found in the nīti tradition: no lineage is described as entirely free of fault; no person is described as untouched by illness; no one is described as not encountering misfortune; and no one is described as possessing uninterrupted happiness.
FAQs
Within the broader nītiśāstra corpus, such statements function as didactic generalizations about social life and human vulnerability. In early Indian political and ethical literature, acknowledging the inevitability of fault, illness, and adversity serves as a rhetorical baseline for discussing prudence and resilience in household and public life, rather than as a report about specific events.
Here vyasana is used in a broad, non-technical sense to denote setbacks or calamities encountered in ordinary life. The verse frames vyasana as a near-universal human experience, paired with illness (vyādhi) and the absence of uninterrupted happiness, emphasizing the perceived instability of worldly conditions.
The verse is structured as a sequence of rhetorical questions (kasyā/ko/kena...), creating a cumulative universalizing effect. Key terms—kula (lineage), doṣa (fault), vyādhi (illness), vyasana (misfortune), and saukhya (happiness)—are common in Sanskrit moral discourse, and the final term nirantaram (“unbroken”) sharpens the contrast between desired continuity and the tradition’s depiction of intermittent worldly well-being.