Spiritual Pal

Note: This is a collection for verses from Sri Chanakya Niti related to women. Neither do I take credit of the wisdom presented, nor am I ready to take blame if someone doesn’t agree with something or someone feels bad about anything in the issue. I leave it to the wisdom you have gathered through your life to evaluate or accept the wisdom of Chanakya.

1. 15. Do not put your trust in rivers, men who carry weapons, beasts with claws or horns, women, and members of a royal family.

1. 17. Women have hunger two-fold, shyness four-fold, daring six-fold, and lust eight-fold as compared to men.

2.1. Untruthfulness, rashness, guile, stupidity, avarice, uncleanliness and cruelty are women’s seven natural flaws.

2.15. Trees on a river bank, a woman in another man’s house, and kings without counselors go without doubt to swift destruction.

3.9. The beauty of a cuckoo is in its notes, that of a woman in her unalloyed devotion to her husband, that of an ugly person in his scholarship, and that of an ascetic in his forgiveness.

4.17. Constant travel brings old age upon a man; a horse becomes old by being constantly tied up; lack of sexual contact with her husband brings old age upon a woman; and garments become old through being left in the sun.

5.6. The learned are envied by the foolish; rich men by the poor; chaste women by adulteresses; and beautiful ladies by ugly ones.

5.14. Heaven is but a straw to him who knows spiritual life (Krsna consciousness); so is life to a valiant man; a woman to him who has subdued his senses; and the universe to him who is without attachment for the world.

5. 21. Among men the barber is cunning; among birds the crow; among beasts the jackal; and among women, the malin (flower girl).

6.3. Brass is polished by ashes; copper is cleaned by tamarind; a woman, by her menses; and a river by its flow.

6.4. The king, the brahmana, and the ascetic yogi who go abroad are respected; but the woman who wanders is utterly ruined.

7. 11. The power of a king lies in his mighty arms; that of a brahmana in his spiritual knowledge; and that of a woman in her beauty youth and sweet words.

8.8. Knowledge is lost without putting it into practice; a man is lost due to ignorance; an army is lost without a commander; and a woman is lost without a husband.

10.4. What is it that escapes the observation of poets? What is that act women are incapable of doing? What will drunken people not prate? What will not a crow eat?

11.5. He who is engrossed in family life will never acquire knowledge; there can be no mercy in the eater of flesh; the greedy man will not be truthful; and purity will not be found in a woman and a hunter.

12.18. Courtesy should be learned from princes, the art of conversation from pandits, lying should be learned from gamblers and deceitful ways should be learned from women.

14.10. It is ruinous to be familiar with the king, fire, the religious preceptor, and a woman. To be altogether indifferent of them is to be deprived of the opportunity to benefit ourselves, hence our association with them must be from a safe distance.

14.11. We should always deal cautiously with fire, water, women, foolish people, serpents, and members of a royal family; for they may, when the occasion presents itself, at once bring about our death.

14.15 One single object (a woman) appears in three different ways: to the man who practices austerity it appears as a corpse, to the sensual it appears as a woman, and to the dogs as a lump of flesh.

16.2. The heart of a woman is not united; it is divided. While she is talking with one man, she looks lustfully at another and thinks fondly of a third in her heart.

16.4. Who is there who, having become rich, has not become proud? Which licentious (Free) man has put an end to his calamities (A grievous disaster)? Which man in this world has not been overcome by a woman? Who is always loved by the king? Who is there who has not been overcome by the ravages of time? Which beggar has attained glory? Who has become happy by contracting the vices of the wicked?

16.13. Those who were not satiated with the enjoyment of wealth, food and women have all passed away; there are others now passing away who have likewise remained unsatiated; and in the future still others will pass away feeling themselves unsatiated.

17.6. When a man has no strength left in him he becomes a sadhu, one without wealth acts like a brahmacari, a sick man behaves like a devotee of the Lord, and when a woman grows old she becomes devoted to her husband.

17.9. The woman who fasts and observes religious vows without the permission of her husband shortens his life, and goes to hell.

17.10. A woman does not become holy by offering by charity, by observing hundreds of fasts, or by sipping sacred water, as by sipping the water used to wash her husbands feet.

17.14. The eating of tundi fruit deprives a man of his sense, while the vacha root administered revives his reasoning immediately. A woman at once robs a man of his vigour while milk at once restores it.