Chanakya Niti — Liberation and Truth, Shloka 13
नापितस्य गृहे क्षौरं पाषाणे गन्धलेपनम् ।
आत्मरूपं जले पश्यन् शक्रस्यापि श्रियं हरेत् ॥
nāpitasya gṛhe kṣauraṃ pāṣāṇe gandha-lepanam |
ātma-rūpaṃ jale paśyan śakrasyāpi śriyaṃ haret ||
床屋の家に剃りは見当たらず、香油は石に付かない。水に自らの姿を見る者は、帝釈天（インドラ）の福運さえ奪うと説かれる。
FAQs
Within the Chanakya-nīti/ nītiśāstra tradition, such verses commonly employ compressed analogies and “impossibility” motifs to frame social observation. References to occupational types (e.g., the barber) and to Vedic-Purāṇic figures (Śakra/Indra) reflect a cultural milieu where everyday social categories and mythic kingship imagery were used together to express moral-psychological and political cautions in aphoristic form.
The verse depicts “seeing one’s own form in water” as a figurative marker for fascination with appearances or self-image. In this framing, such self-absorption (or deceptive reflection) is portrayed as socially and politically potent—hyperbolically described as capable of diminishing even Indra’s “śrī” (royal fortune/prosperity).
The construction juxtaposes concrete loci (a barber’s house, stone, water) with abstract outcomes (loss of śrī). The final clause intensifies the metaphor through the cultural symbol of Śakra (Indra) as the paradigmatic possessor of sovereignty and prosperity. The sequence functions as a rhetorical crescendo, moving from mundane improbabilities to a mythic-scale consequence.