Shloka 5
Power and Prudence — Chanakya Niti
कामधेनुगुणा विद्या ह्यकाले फलदायिनी ।
प्रवासे मातृसदृशी विद्या गुप्तं धनं स्मृतम् ॥
kāmadhenu-guṇā vidyā hy akāle phala-dāyinī |
pravāse mātṛ-sadṛśī vidyā guptaṁ dhanaṁ smṛtam ||
The verse describes learning (vidyā) as possessing the qualities of a wish-fulfilling cow (kāmadhenu), understood as yielding results even when the time is inopportune. It further portrays learning as mother-like during travel or exile, and characterizes it in tradition as a form of concealed wealth.
FAQs
Within nītiśāstra-style compilations, such verses commonly frame learning as a durable resource amid political uncertainty, travel, or displacement—conditions characteristic of premodern courtly life, itinerant scholarship, and shifting patronage networks in South Asia. The imagery aligns with broader Sanskrit didactic literature that treats education as a form of social and economic resilience.
The verse presents vidyā as (1) reliably productive even under adverse timing (akāla), (2) protective and sustaining during absence from one’s home community (pravāsa), and (3) comparable to wealth that is not readily seized because it is internalized (guptaṁ dhanaṁ).
The compound “kāmadhenu-guṇā” uses a well-known mythic referent to intensify the claim of inexhaustible benefit, while “mātṛ-sadṛśī” shifts to a kinship metaphor to express care and security. The phrase “guptaṁ dhanaṁ” employs the idiom of hidden treasure to mark knowledge as non-material capital—portable, less vulnerable to confiscation, and activated through recall and application.