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 14

Verses · श्लोक

Verse 1

prakṛtyā śūnya cittaḥpramāda in a positive registernidrito bodhita ivakṣīṇa saṁsmaraṇaḥ waning not erasurechapter fourteen opening

जनक उवाच ॥ प्रकृत्या शून्यचित्तो यः प्रमादाद् भावभावनः। निद्रितो बोधित इव क्षीणसंस्मरणो हि सः॥१४-१॥

janaka uvāca || prakṛtyā śūnyacitto yaḥ pramādād bhāvabhāvanaḥ| nidrito bodhita iva kṣīṇasaṁsmaraṇo hi saḥ ||14-1||

Janaka said: One whose mind is by nature empty, who out of mere spontaneous inattention engages with the notion of things existing, is like one awakened from sleep, his former memory worn away.

Modern Reflection

This opening verse of the short final personal chapter describes the liberated person's re-engagement with ordinary life not as a deliberate, effortful return but as pramāda, spontaneous inattention or unselfconscious ease, engaging with bhāva, things and events, the way someone freshly woken from deep sleep interacts with the world for a moment before the day's usual concerns reassert themselves. A grandmother in Coimbatore who has spent decades in devoted practice describes her grandchildren visiting her as feeling, each time, like waking fresh, momentarily uncertain what year it is, before recognition settles in gently rather than urgently. Nidrito bodhita iva, like one awakened from sleep, kṣīṇa-saṁsmaraṇaḥ, former memory worn thin, does not mean she has forgotten her grandchildren's names; it describes the specific texture of meeting each moment without the accumulated weight of yesterday's version of the same relationship pressing on it.

Verse 2THE FAMOUS rhetorical listing — where are riches, where are friends, now that craving has dissolved

kva dhanāni kva mitrāṇivairāgya poetry genreviṣaya dasyavaḥ thieves of the sensesyadā me galitā spṛhābhaja govindam parallel

क्व धनानि क्व मित्राणि क्व मे विषयदस्यवः। क्व शास्त्रं क्व च विज्ञानं यदा मे गलिता स्पृहा॥१४-२॥

kva dhanāni kva mitrāṇi kva me viṣayadasyavaḥ| kva śāstraṁ kva ca vijñānaṁ yadā me galitā spṛhā ||14-2||

Where are riches, where are friends, where are the thieves of the senses for me now? Where is scripture, where is knowledge, now that my craving has dissolved?

Modern Reflection

This verse's rhetorical form, the repeated kva, where, listing categories one by one and asking where they have gone, belongs to a well-known genre of Sanskrit vairāgya poetry that includes Shankara's Bhaja Govindam and portions of Bhartrihari's Vairāgya-śataka, where the same device is used to devastating effect. Viṣaya-dasyavaḥ, thieves of the senses, is a striking compound naming sense-objects not as neutral experiences but as dasyu, bandits, that rob a person of their peace — a retired judge in Allahabad, listing to a visiting nephew everything he no longer chases, wealth, social circles, even the professional reputation he once guarded fiercely, uses almost this exact rhetorical form spontaneously, each 'where is it now' landing not as loss but as a kind of amused relief. Yadā me galitā spṛhā, now that my craving has melted, is the verse's actual subject; the listing of what has disappeared is really a report on the state of the one no longer chasing any of it.

Verse 3

na cintā muktaye mamaliberation itself released as goalnairāśye beyond hope not despairsākṣi puruṣe vijñātethree names stacked without conflict

विज्ञाते साक्षिपुरुषे परमात्मनि चेश्वरे। नैराश्ये बंधमोक्षे च न चिंता मुक्तये मम॥१४-३॥

vijñāte sākṣipuruṣe paramātmani ceśvare| nairāśye baṁdhamokṣe ca na ciṁtā muktaye mama ||14-3||

The witness-person, the supreme Self, the Lord, having been directly known — beyond hope, regarding both bondage and liberation, I have no further anxious concern for liberation.

Modern Reflection

Na cintā muktaye mama, I have no anxious concern for liberation, is a genuinely startling line for a text whose entire structure has been building toward liberation as its explicit subject — Janaka declares, near the very end of his teaching, that even the goal-directed pursuit of mokṣa, liberation, has itself dropped away. A long-time practitioner in Rishikesh, decades into formal sadhana originally undertaken with the explicit aim of achieving mokṣa, describes reaching a strange plateau where the striving-toward-liberation itself began to feel like the last remaining form of grasping, and only when that specific goal-orientation relaxed did something genuinely settle. Sākṣi-puruṣe, the witness-person, vijñāte, having been known, precedes and causes this release — once the one who witnesses both bondage and liberation is directly recognized, the category-pair bandha-mokṣa itself, like heya-upādeya and harṣa-viṣāda before it in earlier chapters, loses the grip it once had, including its grip as a goal to be sought.

Verse 4

antar vikalpa śūnyasyabhrāntasya iva crazy wisdomavadhūta tradition paralleltādṛśāḥ eva jānatechapter fourteen closing epistemic humility

अंतर्विकल्पशून्यस्य बहिः स्वच्छन्दचारिणः। भ्रान्तस्येव दशास्तास्तास्तादृशा एव जानते॥१४-४॥

aṁtarvikalpaśūnyasya bahiḥ svacchandacāriṇaḥ| bhrāntasyeva daśāstāstāstādṛśā eva jānate ||14-4||

Of one who is empty of mental constructs within, moving about freely and spontaneously outwardly, his various states — as if of someone deranged — are known only by those who are themselves of a similar nature.

Modern Reflection

The chapter's final verse, and the closing point of this entire chunk's material, names a specific and often uncomfortable social fact: a genuinely liberated person, antar-vikalpa-śūnyasya, empty of mental constructs within, bahiḥ svacchanda-cāriṇaḥ, moving freely and spontaneously outwardly, will often appear to conventional observers indistinguishable from bhrānta, one deranged or wandering aimlessly, because the ordinary social scripts that make behavior legible, ambition, consistency, predictable reaction, no longer organize the person's conduct. A wandering ascetic occasionally seen in the ghats of Varanasi, unpredictable in movement, sometimes silent for weeks, sometimes bursting into unexpected laughter at nothing visible, is dismissed by tourists as simply eccentric or unwell, while a handful of local residents who have spent years watching him recognize something they cannot fully articulate but insist is not madness. Tādṛśāḥ eva jānate, only those of a similar nature understand, closes the verse, and the chapter, with genuine epistemic humility: the text does not claim the reader can verify this recognition from outside, only that it exists.

Previous chapterChapter 13 Next chapterChapter 15

Back to Ashtavakra Gita - The Song of Self-Realization Gita Universe