Also called the Ashtavakra Samhita — a dialogue between the sage Ashtavakra and King Janaka of Videha on the nature of the Self

Ashtavakra Gita - The Song of Self-Realization

अष्टावक्र गीता

6 versesChapter 4

Verses · श्लोक

Verse 1

bhoga līlayā khelataḥkhela versus vāhīkalīlā borrowed from theologyhedge fund manager and trainerchosen play not compelled carrying

अष्टावक्र उवाच॥ हन्तात्मज्ञानस्य धीरस्य खेलतो भोगलीलया। न हि संसारवाहीकैर्मूढैः सह समानता॥४- १॥

aṣṭāvakra uvāca|| hantātmajñānasya dhīrasya khelato bhogalīlayā| na hi saṁsāravāhīkairmūḍhaiḥ saha samānatā||4- 1||

Janaka said: Alas, for the wise one who has Self-knowledge, playing with the sport of enjoyment, there is indeed no equality with the foolish who are carried along by transmigration.

Modern Reflection

Chapter 4, per the itx colophon shishya-prokta-anubhava-ullasa-shatkam, the disciple's own six-verse outburst of experiential bliss, returns briefly to Janaka's first-person testimony after chapter 3's more argumentative teaching voice, and this opening verse immediately draws a sharp line: engaging in bhoga, enjoyment or worldly pleasure, is not by itself evidence of bondage, provided it is khela, play or sport, rather than compulsion. Saṁsāra-vāhīkaiḥ, those carried along by transmigration, uses vahika, one who is carried or transported (like cargo on a cart), a specifically passive image contrasted with khela, playful, active engagement, distinguishing a wise person's chosen participation in worldly life from an ordinary person's involuntary sweeping-along by karmic momentum, even when the two may look outwardly similar. Indian devotional biography is full of figures, Ramakrishna singing and dancing in apparent ecstasy, popularly mistaken by outsiders for madness, whom insiders describe using exactly this khela register, active, delighted, wholly voluntary participation in forms that superficially resemble the compulsive behavior of an ordinary mind carried along by craving.

Verse 2THE FAMOUS gods-desire-what-the-yogi-does-not-even-celebrate verse

śakra ādyāḥ dīnāḥindra longs for what the yogi hasna harṣam not even excited joybillionaire and security guardrecognition not new acquisition

यत् पदं प्रेप्सवो दीनाः शक्राद्याः सर्वदेवताः। अहो तत्र स्थितो योगी न हर्षमुपगच्छति॥४- २॥

yat padaṁ prepsavo dīnāḥ śakrādyāḥ sarvadevatāḥ| aho tatra sthito yogī na harṣamupagacchati||4- 2||

That state which even Indra and all the gods, being wretched, long to attain - ah, the yogi established there does not [even] attain joy [in the ordinary excited sense].

Modern Reflection

Śakra, another name for Indra, king of the gods, longing dīnāḥ, wretchedly or pitiably, for the very state a human yogi has already attained without even feeling harṣa, excited joy, about it, inverts the standard Puranic hierarchy in which devas are typically the powerful, enviable beings and humans the striving supplicants. This inversion is a recurring motif across Indian devotional and philosophical literature, memorably staged in stories where sages casually possess what kings and even gods struggle for, and its purpose is didactic: it relativizes the entire cosmic status-ladder, since if even Indra's exalted position leaves him still dīna, wretched, still lacking and longing, then rank within any hierarchy, divine or worldly, was never the relevant measure of actual completeness to begin with.

Verse 3THE FAMOUS smoke-and-sky analogy for the knower beyond merit and sin

dhūmena ākāśasya saṅgatiḥsmoke and skyasaṅga made concreteairline pilot parallelākāśa subtlest element

तज्ज्ञस्य पुण्यपापाभ्यां स्पर्शो ह्यन्तर्न जायते। न ह्याकाशस्य धूमेन दृश्यमानापि सङ्गतिः॥४- ३॥

tajjñasya puṇyapāpābhyāṁ sparśo hyantarna jāyate| na hyākāśasya dhūmena dṛśyamānāpi saṅgatiḥ||4- 3||

For the knower of that truth, contact with virtue and vice does not arise within - just as smoke, though seen against the sky, does not truly touch it.

Modern Reflection

This verse extends the na kartāsi na bhoktāsi teaching of chapter 1, verse 6, with a new visual analogy that any Indian who has watched smoke from a cooking fire, a crematorium, or a factory chimney rise and apparently mix into the open sky can verify directly: smoke visibly enters and moves through the sky's space, dṛśyamānā api, though it is indeed seen there, and yet never actually stains, dirties, or chemically bonds with akasha, the sky or ether itself, which remains the same colorless, unaffected medium after the smoke disperses that it was before the smoke arrived. The analogy sharpens the earlier verse's ethical point precisely: puṇya-pāpābhyām, virtue and vice, are shown to move visibly through a person's field of experience the way smoke moves through visible sky, without this visible passage constituting the deeper contamination or binding that ordinary moral anxiety assumes must follow.

Verse 4THE FAMOUS who-can-restrain-him verse

kaḥ tam niṣeddhuṁ kṣametayadṛcchayā echoes verse 59internal not external freedomretired judge's exceptional lawyersadhikāri bheda caution against misreading

आत्मैवेदं जगत्सर्वं ज्ञातं येन महात्मना। यदृच्छया वर्तमानं तं निषेद्धुं क्षमेत कः॥४- ४॥

ātmaivedaṁ jagatsarvaṁ jñātaṁ yena mahātmanā| yadṛcchayā vartamānaṁ taṁ niṣeddhuṁ kṣameta kaḥ||4- 4||

The great soul by whom this whole world has been known to be the Self alone, moving about as he wills - who could possibly restrain him?

Modern Reflection

This verse asks a genuinely radical-sounding question, kaḥ tam niṣeddhum kṣameta, who could restrain him, that has historically made some readers uneasy, since it appears to place a realized person beyond social or ethical constraint entirely. Traditional Indian commentary consistently reads this as a description of an internal, metaphysical freedom rather than a license for external social transgression, pointing to the immediately preceding verses (60 through 62) establishing that such a person's conduct, whatever it looks like from outside, is already free of the puṇya-pāpa, virtue-vice, stain that makes ordinary restraint necessary in the first place, and to later chapters of the wider text that continue to describe the jivanmukta acting with perfect natural propriety, not license; the verse describes an absence of any external force capable of coercing such a person's already-purified will, not an endorsement of behaving badly because rules no longer apply.

Verse 5

catur vidha bhūta grāmafour classical categories of lifevijñasya discriminative knowingbehavioral economist parallelicchā anicchā relinquished together

आब्रह्मस्तंबपर्यन्ते भूतग्रामे चतुर्विधे। विज्ञस्यैव हि सामर्थ्यमिच्छानिच्छाविवर्जने॥४- ५॥

ābrahmastaṁbaparyante bhūtagrāme caturvidhe| vijñasyaiva hi sāmarthyamicchānicchāvivarjane||4- 5||

In the fourfold multitude of beings, from Brahma down to a tuft of grass, only the wise one has the capability to truly relinquish both desire and aversion.

Modern Reflection

Catur-vidhe bhūta-grāme, the fourfold multitude of beings, refers to the classical Indian biological classification, jarayuja (womb-born), andaja (egg-born), svedaja (moisture-born, such as insects), and udbhijja (sprout-born, plants), a taxonomy found in the Upanishads and repeated across Puranic literature as the standard fourfold division of all life. The verse's specific claim within this vast taxonomy is narrow and pointed: of every kind of living being across this entire classification, from Brahma the creator to the humblest stamba, tuft of grass, only vijna, the truly wise or discerning one, possesses samarthya, the actual capability, to relinquish icchā and anicchā, desire and aversion, together, implying every other class of being, however exalted (even, implicitly, minor gods), remains structurally driven by likes and dislikes in a way only genuine wisdom can override.

Verse 6THE FAMOUS closing verse of chapter four - the rare knower, fearless everywhere

kaścit someone rarejagad īśvaram applied to individual selfyad vetti tat kurute knowing and doing unifiedwar correspondent parallelna bhayaṁ tasya kutracit

आत्मानमद्वयं कश्चिज्जानाति जगदीश्वरं। यद् वेत्ति तत्स कुरुते न भयं तस्य कुत्रचित्॥४- ६॥

ātmānamadvayaṁ kaścijjānāti jagadīśvaraṁ| yad vetti tatsa kurute na bhayaṁ tasya kutracit||4- 6||

Someone rare knows the Self as non-dual, the Lord of the universe; whatever he knows [to be right], that he does - there is no fear for him anywhere.

Modern Reflection

Kaścit, someone, a rare or indefinite person, opens the verse with a note of genuine scarcity that closes out this chapter's six-verse arc humbly rather than triumphantly: after describing the extraordinary freedom, fearlessness, and capability of the realized person across the preceding five verses, the chapter's final verse admits such a person is kaścit, some rare one, not a common attainment or a default state most readers should assume they already occupy. Jagad-īśvaram, Lord of the universe, applied to the individual Self here rather than reserved for a separate deity, continues the chapter's consistent theme (verses 61's Indra, 63's unrestrainable freedom) of collapsing the distance between individual realization and cosmic sovereignty, while the closing na bhayam tasya kutracit, no fear for him anywhere, gives the whole chapter's argument its most concrete, testable payoff: genuine freedom from fear, in every location and circumstance, without exception.

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