Shloka 6
Qualities of the Wise — Chanakya Niti
प्रलये भिन्नमर्यादा भवन्ति किल सागराः ।
सागरा भेदमिच्छन्ति प्रलयेऽपि न साधवः ॥
pralaye bhinnamaryādā bhavanti kila sāgarāḥ |
sāgarā bhedam icchanti pralaye'pi na sādhavaḥ ||
At pralaya the oceans are said to lose their bounds; yet the virtuous, even in pralaya, do not desire division or schism.
FAQs
In the broader Nītiśāstra tradition, natural and cosmological imagery is frequently used to frame ethical observations. The motif of pralaya reflects a shared Sanskritic cosmology in which even stable structures (such as the ocean’s ‘limits’) can be imagined as disrupted, allowing the text to contrast cosmic instability with an idealized depiction of human steadiness in conduct.
Here bheda is presented as a desire for separation or factional rupture. The verse contrasts the oceans—portrayed as seeking ‘difference’ or boundary-change at pralaya—with sādhavaḥ, who are characterized as not oriented toward schism even under extreme conditions.
The compound bhinna-maryādā (“broken boundaries/limits”) uses maryādā in its sense of a demarcating limit, a meaning common in both ethical and spatial registers. The reportative particle kila (“it is said”) marks the cosmological claim as traditional or proverbial, while the ocean/pralaya image functions as a period-typical metaphor for the collapse of order, against which the steadfastness of sādhavaḥ is rhetorically highlighted.