Shloka 17
Family and Relationships — Chanakya Niti
नास्ति मेघसमं तोयं नास्ति चात्मसमं बलम् ।
नास्ति चक्षुःसमं तेजो नास्ति धान्यसमं प्रियम् ॥
nāsti meghasamaṃ toyaṃ nāsti cātmasamaṃ balam |
nāsti cakṣuḥsamaṃ tejo nāsti dhānyasamaṃ priyam ||
No water equals that from the clouds (rain); no strength equals one’s own; no radiance equals the eye; nothing is as dear as grain (food).
FAQs
In the milieu of Sanskrit nīti (gnomic and pragmatic) literature, such verses commonly compress observations about subsistence, embodied capacities, and social priorities into memorable comparisons. The emphasis on rain-water and grain reflects an agrarian economy in which rainfall and stored cereals were central to stability, taxation, and survival, themes often adjacent to classical discussions of governance and household management.
The verse frames bala through the comparison “ātma-samaṃ balam,” treating strength as most securely located in oneself. In historical-philological terms, this aligns with a recurrent nīti motif that privileges self-possession, personal capacity, or internal resources over external supports, without specifying a single technical definition.
The repeated construction “nāsti X-samaṃ Y” functions as a rhetorical catalogue of superlatives, a common device in Sanskrit subhāṣita-style verse. Terms like tejas (radiance/vital brilliance) and priyam (dear) carry broad semantic ranges; here they are anchored by concrete referents (eye; grain), producing a layered metaphor that links bodily perception, inner agency, and agrarian necessities.