Shloka 19
Qualities of the Wise — Chanakya Niti
उपसर्गेऽन्यचक्रे च दुर्भिक्षे च भयावहे ।
असाधुजनसम्पर्के यः पलायेत्स जीवति ॥
upasarge'nyacakre ca durbhikṣe ca bhayāvahe |
asādhujanasamparke yaḥ palāyetsa jīvati ||
In calamity, amid hostile forces, in a frightening famine, and when entangled with the wicked, the one who withdraws or escapes is the one who stays alive.
FAQs
Within the broader Nītiśāstra tradition, such verses reflect premodern South Asian concerns with instability—warfare between polities, famine cycles, and social danger. The phrasing aligns with a pragmatic strand of political-moral literature that catalogues conditions under which survival is prioritized, a theme also attested in related Sanskrit didactic collections.
The verse enumerates four hazards: (1) upasarga, a general term for affliction or calamity; (2) anyacakra, literally 'another wheel/host,' commonly interpreted in political registers as an opposing army or hostile power; (3) durbhikṣa, famine or severe scarcity; and (4) asādhujanasamparka, association with morally unreliable or dangerous persons. The structure presents these as contexts in which withdrawal is portrayed as life-preserving.
The compound anyacakra uses cakra ('wheel') in a metonymic-political sense found in Sanskrit statecraft vocabulary, where 'wheel' can denote a military formation, an apparatus of power, or a hostile polity. The term palāyeta ('would flee/withdraw') is framed conditionally, and the concluding jīvati ('lives') functions as a gnomic closure typical of Sanskrit aphoristic verse, compressing a pragmatic observation into a memorable cadence.