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

4 versesChapter 5

Verses · श्लोक

Verse 1THE FAMOUS opening of chapter five's four-fold dissolution refrain

saṅghāta vilayamchapter five shares one refrainprofessional organizer parallelskandha parallel in buddhist thoughtalready pure nothing to renounce

अष्टावक्र उवाच॥ न ते संगोऽस्ति केनापि किं शुद्धस्त्यक्तुमिच्छसि। संघातविलयं कुर्वन्नेवमेव लयं व्रज॥५- १॥

aṣṭāvakra uvāca|| na te saṁgo'sti kenāpi kiṁ śuddhastyaktumicchasi| saṁghātavilayaṁ kurvannevameva layaṁ vraja||5- 1||

Ashtavakra said: You have no attachment with anything at all; being already pure, why do you wish to abandon anything? Simply dissolving the sense of the aggregate as yourself, go to dissolution in this very way.

Modern Reflection

Chapter 5, per the itx colophon ācāryokta-laya-catuṣṭayam, the teacher's four verses on dissolution, is the shortest chapter so far and the last in this five-chapter range, its four verses sharing the identical closing refrain evam eva layaṁ vraja, go to dissolution in this very way, a structural device (anaphora across an entire short chapter) rare even within this repetition-loving text. Ashtavakra resumes the teaching voice here after chapter 4's Janaka-testimony, and his first move is characteristically sharp: not offering a technique for achieving detachment, but pointing out that saṅga, attachment, was already absent, na te saṅgaḥ asti kenāpi, making the very question of what to renounce logically confused for someone already śuddhaḥ, pure, from the start. Indian commentaries on this opening move often compare it to a physician telling a perfectly healthy patient there is nothing to cure, a diagnosis that can feel, paradoxically, harder to accept than being told one is ill, since it removes the entire narrative of struggle and gradual improvement a sincere spiritual seeker has usually built an identity around.

Verse 2

budbuda isolated from earlier triadbubble applied to whole cosmosphysics teacher calendar year parallelekam ātmānam simplest restatementchapter as distilled coda

उदेति भवतो विश्वं वारिधेरिव बुद्बुदः। इति ज्ञात्वैकमात्मानं एवमेव लयं व्रज॥५- २॥

udeti bhavato viśvaṁ vāridheriva budbudaḥ| iti jñātvaikamātmānaṁ evameva layaṁ vraja||5- 2||

This universe of yours arises just as a bubble arises from the ocean. Knowing thus the one Self, go to dissolution in this very way.

Modern Reflection

Budbuda, bubble, was already used in the triple wave-foam-bubble analogy at chapter 2, verse 24, and this verse deliberately isolates just that one member of the earlier triad, applying it now specifically to viśvam, the entire universe as a single unit, rather than to individuated jivas as before; the bubble is arguably the most fragile and briefest-lived of the three water-forms, and choosing it specifically for the cosmos as a whole (rather than the more enduring wave) makes an even stronger claim about the world's impermanence than the earlier chapter's use of the same imagery. Anyone who has watched monsoon rain strike a puddle or riverbank in India has seen thousands of such bubbles form and vanish within seconds, an entirely ordinary, endlessly repeated event this verse asks the reader to see the entire cosmos through.

Verse 3THE FAMOUS return of the rope-snake image in the dissolution refrain

rajju sarpa third appearancepratyakṣam api directly perceived anywayavastutvāt lack of substantialitycognitive scientist and visual illusionsamale stainless vocative

प्रत्यक्षमप्यवस्तुत्वाद् विश्वं नास्त्यमले त्वयि। रज्जुसर्प इव व्यक्तं एवमेव लयं व्रज॥५- ३॥

pratyakṣamapyavastutvād viśvaṁ nāstyamale tvayi| rajjusarpa iva vyaktaṁ evameva layaṁ vraja||5- 3||

Though directly perceived, the universe does not exist in you, the stainless one, because it lacks any real substance - like the apparent snake, clearly seen, on a rope. Go to dissolution in this very way.

Modern Reflection

This verse returns explicitly to the rajju-sarpa, rope-snake, image already used at chapter 1 verse 10 and chapter 2 verse 29, its third appearance across this text's first sixty-eight verses, confirming this is the single most load-bearing analogy in the whole chunk under discussion, deployed at the opening of instruction (chapter 1), at the height of Janaka's own testimony (chapter 2), and now again in the closing dissolution-sequence (chapter 5), a deliberate structural bracket holding the entire span together. Pratyakṣam api, even though directly perceived, concedes the strongest possible epistemological objection up front, the world is not merely inferred or imagined in some weak sense, it is seen as clearly as anything can be seen, and the verse's answer remains that clarity of perception and reality of the perceived object are simply two different questions, exactly as vividly, unmistakably seeing a snake on a darkened path does not make an actual snake present if only a rope lies there.

Verse 4THE FAMOUS closing verse of this range - equal in life and death

sama jīvita mṛtyuḥ life and death equanimitypūrṇaḥ echoes īśa upaniṣad śānti pāṭhahospice physician's clearest markerrefrain closes chapter and chunkthree axes of ordinary disturbance

समदुःखसुखः पूर्ण आशानैराश्ययोः समः। समजीवितमृत्युः सन्नेवमेव लयं व्रज॥५- ४॥

samaduḥkhasukhaḥ pūrṇa āśānairāśyayoḥ samaḥ| samajīvitamṛtyuḥ sannevameva layaṁ vraja||5- 4||

Equal in sorrow and joy, whole and complete, equal in hope and hopelessness, equal in life and death - being thus, go to dissolution in this very way.

Modern Reflection

This final verse of the five-chapter range under discussion closes on the boldest of its three paired equanimities, sama-jīvita-mṛtyuḥ, equal in life and death, the most demanding item in a list that has already covered sukha-duhkha, pleasure and pain, and āśā-nairāśya, hope and hopelessness; placing life-and-death equanimity last, as the climactic member of the triad, gives this closing verse of the chunk a natural sense of arrival, the text having built, across sixty-nine verses, toward exactly this most difficult equanimity as its final named benchmark. Pūrṇaḥ, whole or complete, inserted in the middle of the list rather than at either end, functions almost as a hinge word, the completeness that makes equanimity toward opposites possible rather than merely tolerable, echoing the invocation to purnam adah purnam idam, that is whole, this is whole, from the Isha Upanishad's famous shanti-patha, peace invocation, a formula many readers of this text would recognize from temple and household recitation.

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