Shloka 13
Qualities of the Wise — Chanakya Niti
को हि भारः समर्थानां किं दूरं व्यवसायिनाम् ।
को विदेशः सुविद्यानां कः परः प्रियवादिनाम् ॥
ko hi bhāraḥ samarthānāṃ kiṃ dūraṃ vyavasāyinām |
ko videśaḥ suvidyānāṃ kaḥ paraḥ priyavādinām ||
For the capable, no task is a burden; for the enterprising, no distance is far. For the well-educated, no place is foreign; for the sweet-spoken, no one is an outsider.
FAQs
In the broader Nītiśāstra tradition, such compact verses function as didactic summaries of valued social capacities—competence, enterprise, learning, and agreeable speech—often circulating in courtly, pedagogical, and advisory settings where mobility, patronage, and reputation were significant features of elite life.
Here videśa is framed less as a legal boundary and more as a social experience: the verse suggests that learning (suvidyā) operates as a portable form of cultural capital, reducing the sense of being “abroad” by enabling communication, employability, and recognition across regions.
The verse is built as a sequence of rhetorical questions (ko/kim …?), producing a parallel structure that equates four domains—labor (bhāra), distance (dūra), foreign land (videśa), and social otherness (para)—with four stabilizing qualities. Terms like paraḥ (“other/outsider”) and priyavādin (“pleasant-speaker”) indicate that social inclusion is represented as mediated by speech and demeanor, a common motif in Sanskrit gnomic literature.