Shloka 11
Learning and Knowledge — Chanakya Niti
बाहुवीर्यं बलं राज्ञां ब्रह्मणो ब्रह्मविद्बली ।
रूपयौवनमाधुर्यं स्त्रीणां बलमनुत्तमम् ॥
bāhuvīryaṃ balaṃ rājñāṃ brahmaṇo brahmavidbalī |
rūpayauvanamādhuryaṃ strīṇāṃ balam anuttamam ||
A king’s strength is the vigor of his arms; a brahmin’s strength is the power born of knowledge of Brahman. A woman’s unsurpassed strength is beauty, youth, and sweetness of charm.
FAQs
Within the broader nīti (conduct/statecraft) literature, such verses often classify forms of “power” according to idealized social roles. The king is associated with coercive and military capacity (arm-strength), the brahmin with authority grounded in sacred learning, and women with socially recognized forms of influence connected to appearance and interpersonal charm. This reflects premodern normative categories rather than empirical sociology.
Here bala is presented as role-relative: physical prowess for rulers, intellectual–ritual authority for brahmins (via brahman-knowledge), and aesthetic/social capital for women (rūpa, yauvana, mādhurya). The verse frames these as distinct modalities of efficacy within its cultural vocabulary.
The compound bāhuvīrya (“arm-valor”) uses the arm as a conventional metonym for martial force and governance. The phrase brahmavidbalī (“the knower of brahman is strong”) links “strength” to epistemic/ritual authority, a common move in Sanskrit didactic texts. The triad rūpa–yauvana–mādhurya enumerates qualities that, in classical kāvya and nīti discourse, function as socially legible sources of influence, indicating a culturally specific conception of power.