Shloka 7
Self-Discipline — Chanakya Niti
कालः पचति भूतानि कालः संहरते प्रजाः ।
कालः सुप्तेषु जागर्ति कालो हि दुरतिक्रमः ॥
kālaḥ pacati bhūtāni kālaḥ saṃharate prajāḥ |
kālaḥ supteṣu jāgarti kālo hi duratikramaḥ ||
Time ripens all beings; Time also dissolves peoples. Time stays awake while others sleep; Time is truly hard to overcome.
FAQs
Within the broader Nītiśāstra milieu, such statements function as reflective commonplaces about impermanence and constraint. In historical settings shaped by dynastic turnover, warfare, famine, and administrative uncertainty, ‘kāla’ is frequently invoked as a supra-human determinant that frames political planning and personal fortune without presenting it as a controllable variable.
The verse characterizes kāla through four descriptive actions: maturation (‘ripening’ beings), termination (bringing people/communities to an end), vigilance (wakefulness amid sleepers), and inexorability (being difficult to surpass). This presents time less as a calendrical measure and more as an overarching principle associated with change, decay, and inevitability.
The verb pacati (‘cooks/ripens’) uses a culinary/agricultural metaphor common in Sanskrit to express maturation and the inevitable progression toward transformation. The pairing of supteṣu (‘among the sleeping’) with jāgarti (‘is awake’) personifies kāla as continuously operative, implying uninterrupted causality. The adjective duratikramaḥ (‘hard to cross’) employs a ‘crossing’ metaphor (atikrama) often used for obstacles, boundaries, or forces that resist human agency.