Shloka 1
Ethics of Action — Chanakya Niti
अधमा धनमिच्छन्ति धनमानौ च मध्यमाः ।
उत्तमा मानमिच्छन्ति मानो हि महतां धनम् ॥
adhamā dhanam icchanti dhanamānau ca madhyamāḥ |
uttamā mānam icchanti māno hi mahatāṃ dhanam ||
The low seek wealth; the middling seek wealth and honor; the highest seek honor, for honor is the wealth of the great.
FAQs
In the broader nīti-śāstra tradition, such verses function as didactic summaries of perceived social motivations, often framed through typologies (e.g., ‘low/middle/high’). This reflects an intellectual milieu in which wealth (dhana) and honor (māna) were treated as key social currencies within courtly, administrative, and elite moral discourse in premodern South Asia.
Here māna is presented as a form of social valuation—esteem, recognition, or status—contrasted with material wealth. The phrasing “māno hi mahatāṃ dhanam” depicts honor as an alternative ‘treasure’ associated with those designated as ‘great’ (mahat), indicating a hierarchy of values rather than a technical definition.
The verse uses a tripartite parallel structure (adhama/madhyama/uttama) typical of Sanskrit gnomic poetry to create a graduated scale of desires. Metaphorically, it equates māna with dhana (“honor is wealth”), compressing a social theory of prestige into a memorable aphorism; philologically, the compound “dhanamānau” succinctly coordinates two aims in a dual-like pairing.