Shloka 7
Learning and Knowledge — Chanakya Niti
शकटं पञ्चहस्तेन दशहस्तेन वाजिनम् ।
गजं हस्तसहस्रेण देशत्यागेन दुर्जनम् ॥
śakaṭaṃ pañcahastena daśahastena vājinam |
gajaṃ hastasahasreṇa deśatyāgena durjanam ||
Safety has its measures: keep five hands from a cart, ten from a horse, a thousand from an elephant; but from a wicked man, keep away by leaving the place.
FAQs
Within the didactic tradition of Nītiśāstra, the verse reflects a common premodern topos: practical caution expressed through concrete comparisons (vehicles and animals) and then extended to social danger (the durjana). The use of the hasta as a distance unit aligns with everyday measurement practices attested across classical and early-medieval Sanskrit sources.
Risk is presented comparatively, moving from physical hazards (cart, horse, elephant) to interpersonal or moral hazard (durjana). The structure suggests that social harm is conceptualized as less predictable and therefore requiring more extreme avoidance than physical threats.
The verse uses escalating numerical measures (5, 10, 1000) as a rhetorical intensifier, culminating in a qualitative shift: instead of a quantified distance, the final comparison employs deśatyāga (“leaving the place”), indicating that the threat associated with a durjana is framed as not adequately managed by ordinary spatial separation. The term durjana functions as a moral-social category common in Sanskrit gnomic literature.