चन्दनानपि दावोऽग्निर्दहत्येव(Chankya Niti)

“चन्दनानपि दावोऽग्निर्दहत्येव।“

 Translation of above quote in Hindi and English

·       The forest fire burns even trees like sandalwood.

·       दावानल चन्दन अदि को भी जला देती है ।

Following are some of the interpretation’s that we can assume from this quote:

·       Things affecting people around you will gradually affect you.

·       Being good is not enough.

·       Physical laws apply to all with no exception.

·       Don’t be rigid as a tree.

Here sandalwood represents a person with extraordinary qualities and who has more value than the others. Forest fire can be taken as evil or bad person. It’s the destroyer. So here in this context if there is fire that is burning all the trees in the forest than it will also burn the special one (sandalwood) irrespective of its qualities and value. There is no escaping it. Death can be example to it too. No matter how glorified and extraordinary is person at some point he has to die?

Being good is not enough. In this context being good and important is not enough to safe guard itself from the coming danger. As we know tree is incapable of acting to safe itself but we Homo sapiens or humans can act to safeguard our self and the others. If your society is being burned by corruption, crime, terrorism and other evils and you didn’t act to save your society than you will also get burned in the fire of such evil acts.

Physical laws apply to all with no exceptions. It’s like gravity working for all of us no matter how different and special we are. Everybody has to eat to survive.

Don’t be rigid as a tree. As we all know that even sandalwood is incapable saving its self from fire although it has very distinct qualities than others. Here we should always be ready for change according to the situations no matter how good and able we are. This means a man should not be too rigid in his approach.  He should always be wise and should be able to control his ego according to the situations. In history we have seen many leaders fall along with their nation because they were not able to take corrective approach according to the situation. Their ego conquered them. So we human should be wise and master our ego. So when a disaster comes along we will be able to save our self unlike a sandalwood.

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