Shloka 9
Qualities of the Wise — Chanakya Niti
कोकिलानां स्वरो रूपं स्त्रीणां रूपं पतिव्रतम् ।
विद्या रूपं कुरूपाणां क्षमा रूपं तपस्विनाम् ॥
kokilānāṃ svaro rūpaṃ strīṇāṃ rūpaṃ pativratam |
vidyā rūpaṃ kurūpāṇāṃ kṣamā rūpaṃ tapasvinām ||
A cuckoo’s form is its voice; a woman’s form is fidelity to her husband. Learning is the form of the ill-favoured; forbearance is the form of ascetics.
FAQs
In the broader nīti (ethical-political aphorism) tradition, such verses commonly catalogue culturally legible markers of worth (rūpa) using compact analogies. The categories invoked—birdsong, marital fidelity, learning, and ascetic forbearance—reflect pre-modern South Asian moral and social valuations rather than empirical description, and they function as mnemonic moral taxonomy within didactic literature.
Here rūpa operates as “defining quality” or “socially recognized excellence,” not merely physical appearance. Each clause equates rūpa with a salient attribute: voice for the cuckoo, pativratā-dharma for women, learning for those deemed unattractive, and kṣamā (forbearance) for ascetics—indicating a rhetorical shift from outward form to reputational or ethical markers.
The verse uses parallel nominal sentences (X-ānāṃ Y rūpam) to create a four-part evaluative list. The metaphorical move is strongest where rūpa is reassigned from physicality to intangible virtues (vidyā, kṣamā). The term pativratam is culturally loaded, denoting a normative ideal of wifely fidelity in Brahmanical discourse, and its inclusion illustrates how nīti texts encode period-specific gendered virtues alongside more broadly applicable moral qualities such as learning and forbearance.