Chanakya
Chanakya
Chanakya; flourished c. 4th century BCE) was an Indian teacher, philosopher, economist, jurist and royal advisor. He is traditionally identified as Kauṭilya or Vishnu Gupta, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise, the Arthashastra. As such, he is considered the pioneer of the field of political science and economics in India, and his work is thought of as an important precursor to classical economics. His works were lost near the end of the Gupta Empire and not rediscovered until 1915...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionPolitician
CountryIndia
Virtuous persons and fruit-laden trees bow, but fools and dry sticks break because they do not bend.
Poverty, disease, sorrow, imprisonment and other evils are the fruits borne by the tree of one's own sins.
The fire of the forest burns trees to ashes. Even expensive sandalwood tree which is endowed with qualities of cooling and fragrance, cannot escape from burning. In the same way wicked cause harm to their benefactors also.
Trees on a riverbank, a woman in another man's house, and kings without counselors go without doubt to swift destruction.
As a whole forest becomes fragrant by the existence of a single tree with sweet-smelling blossoms in it, so a family becomes famous by the birth of a virtuous son.
As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.
The forest fire burns even tree like sandalwood.
Whores don’t live in company of poor men, citizens never support a weak company and birds don’t build nests on a tree that doesn’t bear fruits.
Do not be very upright in your dealings for you would see by going to the forest that straight trees are cut down while crooked ones are left standing.
Those who are destitute of learning, penance, knowledge, good disposition, virtue and benevolence are brutes wandering the earth in the form of men. They are burdensome to the earth.
To have ability for eating when dishes are ready at hand, to be robust and virile in the company of one's religiously wedded wife, and to have a mind for making charity when one is prosperous are the fruits of no ordinary austerities.
Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venomous.
Therefore kings gather round themselves men of good families, for they never forsake them either at the beginning, the middle or the end.
By means of hearing one understands dharma, malignity vanishes, knowledge is acquired, and liberation from material bondage is gained.