Bhartṛhari (भर्तृहरि) is the poet credited with three celebrated collections of one hundred verses each, known together as the Śatakatraya (शतकत्रय, "the three centuries"). Together these three sets of stanzas — on worldly conduct, on love, and on renunciation — form one of the most widely quoted bodies of verse in the entire Sanskrit tradition.
Who Was
Bhartṛhari's identity is uncertain. The same name is borne by a famous grammarian-philosopher who wrote the Vākyapadīya in the fifth century CE, and there has been long debate over whether the poet and the philosopher are the same person. Modern scholarship is divided. Whatever the resolution, the poet Bhartṛhari is generally dated to the fifth or sixth century CE.
Legends present him as a king who renounced his throne after discovering his queen's unfaithfulness. The poems are said to reflect his journey from courtly life through the agony of love to philosophical detachment. Whether or not the biography is true, it captures something real about the trilogy: each Śataka explores a different mood, and together they trace an arc from engagement to renunciation.
The Three Centuries
The नीतिशतक (Nīti-śataka) is a hundred verses of practical and ethical wisdom — observations on rulers, scholars, friends, the wise and the fool, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak. Many of its lines have become proverbial across India:
Sahasā vidadhīta na kriyām aviveka paramāpadāṃ padam — "Do not act in haste; lack of discernment is the chief abode of disaster."
Vidyā nāma narasya rūpam adhikam pracchanna-guptaṃ dhanam — "Knowledge is a man's true beauty, a wealth kept hidden and secure."
The शृङ्गारशतक (Śṛṅgāra-śataka) is a hundred verses on love — its sweetness, its anguish, its illusions, and the beauty of women. Some of the verses are tender and direct; others are tinged with ironic self-awareness, watching the lover from the perspective of one who has begun to see through love's enchantments.
The Śṛṅgāra-śataka is unusual in Sanskrit literature for its candour. Bhartṛhari neither idealises love nor condemns it; he records it with a wry truthfulness that anticipates his eventual turn to renunciation.
The वैराग्यशतक (Vairāgya-śataka) is a hundred verses on dispassion. Here Bhartṛhari catalogues the futilities of the world — the fleeting pleasures of wealth and beauty, the indignities of seeking patronage, the inexorable march of age and death — and meditates on the freedom of one who has turned away.
A famous verse from this collection:
Bhogā na bhuktā vayam eva bhuktāḥ tapo na taptaṃ vayam eva taptāḥ
Kālo na yāto vayam eva yātāḥ tṛṣṇā na jīrṇā vayam eva jīrṇāḥ
"Pleasures have not been enjoyed — we ourselves have been consumed. Austerities have not been performed — we ourselves have been burned. Time has not passed — we ourselves have passed. Desire has not aged — we ourselves have aged."
Style
Bhartṛhari's verses are mostly composed in elaborate metres — Śārdūlavikrīḍita, Mandākrāntā, Śikhariṇī — that demand both linguistic agility and emotional control. He works in single-stanza units, each a complete poem unto itself. This concentration of meaning into a compact form is what later anthologists called the subhāṣita ("well-spoken verse"), and Bhartṛhari is one of its great masters.
Legacy
The three Śatakas have been continuously read, memorised, and quoted for fifteen centuries. They were among the first Sanskrit works translated into European languages — a German rendering appeared in 1659, and English versions multiplied through the colonial period. In modern times, the Vairāgya-śataka has spoken with particular force to readers seeking guidance on letting go, while the Nīti-śataka remains a school text and a source of everyday wisdom across India.
Bhartṛhari demonstrates how Sanskrit verse can hold worldliness and renunciation in the same hand — not as opposites but as successive stages of a single human life.