Shloka 19
Self-Discipline — Chanakya Niti
गूढमैथुनचारित्वं काले काले च सङ्ग्रहम् ।
अप्रमत्तमविश्वासं पञ्च शिक्षेच्च वायसात् ॥
gūḍha-maithuna-cāritvaṁ kāle kāle ca saṅgraham |
apramattam aviśvāsaṁ pañca śikṣec ca vāyasāt ||
From the crow one should learn five traits: discretion in sexual conduct, storing up at intervals, gathering at the proper time, constant vigilance, and cautious distrust—do not trust too easily.
FAQs
Within the Chanakya-nīti/Nītiśāstra tradition, this verse belongs to a broader genre of pragmatic moral and political instruction that uses animal exempla. Such maxims circulated in premodern South Asia as portable guidance for householders, administrators, and courtly audiences, reflecting an environment where discretion, resource management, and vigilance were treated as social virtues in competitive political and economic settings.
The term "aviśvāsa" is presented as a valued posture of caution rather than an ethical judgment about interpersonal trust in the abstract. In this aphoristic context, it functions as a strategy of risk management—an attitude of not relying uncritically on others—paired with "apramatta" (vigilance) as complementary safeguards.
The verse uses the crow (vāyasa) as a behavioral model, a common device in Sanskrit didactic literature where observable animal habits are mapped onto human prudential norms. Compounds like "gūḍha-maithuna-cāritva" compress a full behavioral claim into a single lexical unit, illustrating the dense, mnemonic style typical of nīti verses.