Shloka 18
Power and Prudence — Chanakya Niti
कः कालः कानि मित्राणि को देशः कौ व्ययागमौ ।
कश्चाहं का च मे शक्तिरिति चिन्त्यं मुहुर्मुहुः ॥
kaḥ kālaḥ kāni mitrāṇi ko deśaḥ kau vyayāgamau |
kaścāhaṃ kā ca me śaktir iti cintyaṃ muhur muhuḥ ||
کون سا وقت ہے، دوست کون ہیں، ملک کی حالت کیا ہے، خرچ اور آمدن کیا ہیں؛ میں کون ہوں اور میری طاقت کتنی ہے—یہ سب بار بار سوچنے کے لائق ہے۔
FAQs
Within the Chanakya-nīti/Nītiśāstra tradition, such verses are commonly situated in courtly and administrative milieus where decision-making is framed through recurring evaluation of circumstance (time and place), networks (allies), and resources (income and expenditure). The formulation reflects a broader early Indian political-intellectual habit of enumerating practical variables for governance and personal strategy, preserved in didactic Sanskrit verse for memorization and transmission.
The verse foregrounds paired accounting terms—vyaya (outlay) and āgama (receipt/income)—alongside kāla (timing), deśa (territory), and mitra (allies). In this presentation, financial assessment is treated as one variable among several that together describe situational analysis, rather than as a standalone moral principle.
The structure is a sequence of interrogatives (kaḥ/ko/kāni/kau/kā) forming an enumerative checklist, a common didactic technique in Sanskrit gnomic literature. The compound vyayāgamau compresses an economic dyad into a single metrical unit, and muhur muhuḥ emphasizes iteration, signaling that the inquiry is cyclical and context-sensitive rather than a one-time determination.