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

7 versesChapter 13

Verses · श्लोक

Verse 1THE FAMOUS verse — the ease of owning nothing eludes even the loincloth-clad ascetic

kaupīnatve api durlabhamthe robe does not guarantee the easetyāgādāne vihāyayathāsukham āse refrain beginsakiñcana bhava

जनक उवाच ॥ अकिंचनभवं स्वास्थ्यं कौपीनत्वेऽपि दुर्लभं। त्यागादाने विहायास्मादहमासे यथासुखम्॥१३-१॥

janaka uvāca || akiṁcanabhavaṁ svāsthyaṁ kaupīnatve'pi durlabhaṁ| tyāgādāne vihāyāsmādahamāse yathāsukham ||13-1||

Janaka said: The ease of owning nothing is rare even for one clad only in a loincloth. Having abandoned both renunciation and acquisition, I dwell as I please.

Modern Reflection

Kaupīnatve api durlabham, rare even for one in a loincloth, is a genuinely provocative line: kaupīna, the simple cloth of a formal renunciate, is the most visible external marker of having given up possessions, yet Ashtavakra Gita, through Janaka, insists that akiñcana-bhava, the actual inner ease of having nothing, does not reliably follow from the outer sign. A famous ascetic who visits Varanasi every winter, owning nothing but his cloth and staff, is privately known among the local shopkeepers to negotiate fiercely over the price of his single daily meal, a small but telling detail that illustrates exactly what this verse names: the robe did not guarantee the ease it is supposed to represent. Janaka, by contrast, a still-reigning king in silk and jewels, claims yathāsukham āse, I dwell as I please, precisely because he has abandoned tyāga-ādāne, both the project of renouncing and the project of acquiring, rather than performing either one as an identity.

Verse 2

kutrāpi khedaḥ scattered fatiguekāya jihvā manaḥ three frontspuruṣārthe sthitaḥ sukhamnot resolving each threadordinary daily exhaustion

कुत्रापि खेदः कायस्य जिह्वा कुत्रापि खेद्यते। मनः कुत्रापि तत्त्यक्त्वा पुरुषार्थे स्थितः सुखम्॥१३-२॥

kutrāpi khedaḥ kāyasya jihvā kutrāpi khedyate| manaḥ kutrāpi tattyaktvā puruṣārthe sthitaḥ sukham ||13-2||

The body's weariness is over one thing somewhere, the tongue is wearied by another thing somewhere, the mind by yet another — having abandoned this scattered fragmentation, established in the true aim of a person, I dwell happily.

Modern Reflection

This verse names a specific, easily overlooked kind of exhaustion: not one large distress but the scattered accumulation of small dissatisfactions distributed across body, speech, and mind, each complaining about a different, unrelated thing at the same time. A schoolteacher in Nagpur, at the end of an ordinary Tuesday, catalogs to herself, half-jokingly, that her feet ache from standing (kāyasya kheda), her throat is sore from talking all day (jihvā khedyate), and her mind is separately irritated by an unresolved argument with her sister (manaḥ khedyate) — three completely unrelated grievances, none severe, all draining attention simultaneously. Ashtavakra's puruṣa-arthe sthitaḥ, established in the true aim of a person, does not fix any of the three individually; it names a settling beneath all three, a place from which the body's ache, the throat's soreness, and the mind's irritation are all noted without organizing the whole day around any of them.

Verse 3

kṛtaṁ kim api naiva syātno ledger of deedsaction continues doership dissolvestattvataḥ ontological not psychologicalyathāsukham while still acting

कृतं किमपि नैव स्याद् इति संचिन्त्य तत्त्वतः। यदा यत्कर्तुमायाति तत् कृत्वासे यथासुखम्॥१३-३॥

kṛtaṁ kimapi naiva syād iti saṁcintya tattvataḥ| yadā yatkartumāyāti tat kṛtvāse yathāsukham ||13-3||

'Nothing whatsoever has truly been done' — having reflected on this, truly, whenever whatever comes to be done arrives, having done that, I dwell as I please.

Modern Reflection

Kṛtaṁ kim api na eva syāt, nothing whatsoever has really been done, sounds at first like a denial of effort, but the verse's second half immediately shows Janaka still doing whatever yat kartum āyāti, whatever comes to be done — the claim is not that action stops, but that the sense of a personal doer accumulating a record of deeds dissolves. A civil servant in Bhubaneswar who has processed thousands of files across a thirty-year career, some life-changing for the applicants, most routine, describes reaching a point where he genuinely could not reconstruct which specific files he handled which year, not from carelessness but because the accumulating sense of 'my accomplishments' simply stopped forming, even as his actual competence and diligence in each individual task never wavered. Ashtavakra's verse names this precisely: tattvataḥ, according to the actual truth of things, no ledger of done-deeds was ever really being kept by the one doing them, and yet the doing itself continues, unimpaired, yathāsukham, at ease.

Verse 4

karma naiṣkarmya nirbandha bhāvāḥno fixed stance for or against actiondeha stha yoginaḥ jīvanmuktisaṁyoga ayoga virahātletting circumstance determine mode

कर्मनैष्कर्म्यनिर्बन्धभावा देहस्थयोगिनः। संयोगायोगविरहादहमासे यथासुखम्॥१३-४॥

karmanaiṣkarmyanirbandhabhāvā dehasthayoginaḥ| saṁyogāyogavirahādahamāse yathāsukham ||13-4||

The yogi dwelling in the body has no fixed insistence on either action or inaction. Free from concern about union and separation of circumstances, I dwell as I please.

Modern Reflection

This verse denies the yogi any nirbandha-bhāva, fixed insistence, on either karma, action, or naiṣkarmya, inaction — a pointed rejection of two opposite spiritual postures that each claim to be the correct one: the activist who insists engagement is always required, and the quietist who insists withdrawal is always superior. A monk in Pune who spends half the year in intense silent retreat and the other half organizing disaster relief logistics for flood victims, refuses when pressed to say which half is his 'real' practice, insisting both are simply what arrived to be done in their season. Ashtavakra's saṁyoga-ayoga-virahāt, free from concern about union and separation, describes exactly this refusal to fix a permanent stance for or against engagement, allowing circumstance to determine which mode is appropriate without anxiety about which one is spiritually superior.

Verse 5

artha anarthau not posturalsthiti gati śayana merismno magical thinking about postureequal ease in every positionordinary embodied freedom

अर्थानर्थौ न मे स्थित्या गत्या न शयनेन वा। तिष्ठन् गच्छन् स्वपन् तस्मादहमासे यथासुखम्॥१३-५॥

arthānarthau na me sthityā gatyā na śayanena vā| tiṣṭhan gacchan svapan tasmādahamāse yathāsukham ||13-5||

Gain and loss are not, for me, determined by standing, walking, or lying down. Therefore, whether standing, walking, or sleeping, I dwell as I please.

Modern Reflection

This verse targets a very specific, almost superstitious anxiety: the belief that a particular posture or activity, standing versus sitting versus lying down, might itself be lucky or unlucky, correlated with outcome. A businessman in Kolkata who has for years believed that important decisions made while standing yield better results than those made sitting, and refuses to sign contracts lying propped in bed even when illness confines him there, is being addressed directly by this verse's claim that artha-anarthau, gain and loss, simply do not track sthiti-gati-śayana, standing, going, lying down, in the way superstition insists. Janaka's freedom is partly this: he has stopped believing his physical posture at the moment of decision or receipt of news carries any causal weight over the outcome, and tiṣṭhan gacchan svapan, whether standing, going, or sleeping, remains equally yathāsukham, at ease.

Verse 6

svapataḥ nāsti me hāniḥno guaranteed coupling of effort and outcomenāśa ullāsau both abandonedagainst meritocratic assumptionrest and striving equalized

स्वपतो नास्ति मे हानिः सिद्धिर्यत्नवतो न वा। नाशोल्लासौ विहायास्मादहमासे यथासुखम्॥१३-६॥

svapato nāsti me hāniḥ siddhiryatnavato na vā| nāśollāsau vihāyāsmādahamāse yathāsukham ||13-6||

For one resting, there is no loss; nor is there necessarily success for one who strives. Having abandoned both despair and elation over this, I dwell as I please.

Modern Reflection

This verse dismantles the deeply held assumption, in Indian work culture as much as anywhere, that effort reliably correlates with outcome — svapataḥ na asti hāniḥ, for one resting there is no loss, and siddhir yatnavato na vā, nor does the striving one necessarily gain success, together deny both halves of the equation people usually take for granted. A student in Kota, preparing for engineering entrance exams in a coaching culture built entirely on the premise that more hours studied guarantees a better rank, watches a classmate who studied noticeably less outperform him, and another who matched his own hours underperform badly. Ashtavakra's verse would name this not as an injustice requiring explanation but as the actual, observable pattern: nāśa-ullāsau vihāya, having abandoned both despair over failed effort and elation over successful effort, since neither response was ever warranted by the actual, unreliable relationship between effort and outcome.

Verse 7

sukha ādi rūpā niyamamno fixed rule empirically observedśubha aśubhe vihāyabhūriśaḥ repeated observationchapter thirteen closing

सुखादिरूपा नियमं भावेष्वालोक्य भूरिशः। शुभाशुभे विहायास्मादहमासे यथासुखम्॥१३-७॥

sukhādirūpā niyamaṁ bhāveṣvālokya bhūriśaḥ| śubhāśubhe vihāyāsmādahamāse yathāsukham ||13-7||

Having observed, repeatedly and extensively, that pleasure and the rest have no fixed rule among worldly events, therefore, having abandoned the distinction of auspicious and inauspicious, I dwell as I please.

Modern Reflection

The chapter's closing verse generalizes the observation of verse 120 (no reliable link between effort and outcome) into an even broader empirical claim: sukha-ādi-rūpā niyamam, any fixed rule for what produces pleasure, pain, and the rest, bhāveṣu, among worldly events, simply does not hold, bhūriśaḥ, when observed extensively and repeatedly. A wedding planner in Jaipur who has organized hundreds of ceremonies notices, over decades, that the same auspicious astrological timing chosen with enormous care sometimes precedes a marriage that thrives and sometimes one that ends badly, and that a hastily arranged, inauspiciously timed match occasionally becomes the happiest couple she knows. Ashtavakra's closing move, śubha-aśubhe vihāya, having abandoned auspicious and inauspicious as categories, does not ask her to stop performing the rituals her clients want; it describes what she has privately, quietly concluded after enough repeated observation: no fixed niyama, rule, actually governs which circumstances yield which outcomes.

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