Shloka 3
Power and Prudence — Chanakya Niti
दर्शनध्यानसंस्पर्शैर्मत्सी कूर्मी च पक्षिणी ।
शिशुं पालयते नित्यं तथा सज्जन-संगतिः ॥
darśana-dhyāna-saṁsparśair matsī kūrmī ca pakṣiṇī |
śiśuṁ pālayate nityaṁ tathā sajjana-saṅgatiḥ ||
The verse describes a traditional comparison: a fish, a tortoise, and a bird are said to nurture their young respectively through sight, mental attention, and physical contact; in the same manner, association with the virtuous (sajjana-saṅgati) is portrayed as continually protective and sustaining.
FAQs
Within the broader nīti (didactic) tradition, such verses function as compact moral-psychological observations framed through everyday natural imagery. The comparison to animal nurturing practices reflects a premodern South Asian rhetorical habit of grounding ethical claims in widely recognizable natural analogies, suitable for memorization and recitation in courtly, pedagogical, and household settings.
In this verse, sajjana-saṅgati is characterized metaphorically as a sustaining influence analogous to parental care. The phrasing presents virtuous company as an ongoing protective presence rather than a single event, emphasizing continuity (nityam) as the key feature of its described effect.
The compound darśana-dhyāna-saṁsparśaiḥ compresses three modes of influence—visual presence, mental attention, and tactile contact—into a single instrumental construction, enabling a parallelism with sajjana-saṅgatiḥ. The use of feminine animal nouns (matsī, kūrmī, pakṣiṇī) aligns the imagery with maternal care, and the verse leverages graded “contact” (from distant to direct) to suggest that beneficial influence can operate through multiple degrees of proximity.