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

11 versesChapter 16

Verses · श्लोक

Verse 1

svāsthyasva stha standing in oneselfsarva vismaraṇaframe versescripture cannot substitute

आचक्ष्व शृणु वा तात नानाशास्त्राण्यनेकशः। तथापि न तव स्वास्थ्यं सर्वविस्मरणाद् ऋते॥१६-१॥

ācakṣva śṛṇu vā tāta nānāśāstrāṇyanekaśaḥ| tathāpi na tava svāsthyaṃ sarvavismaraṇād ṛte||16-1||

Teach or listen to countless scriptures as often as you like, son - still you will find no true rest except by forgetting everything.

Modern Reflection

Svāsthya, the word rendered here as 'true rest,' is the ordinary Sanskrit word for health, built from sva plus stha - literally, 'standing in one's own [nature].' A doctor in Pune diagnosing a patient uses the same root every day without hearing its philosophical charge. Ashtavakra is quietly redefining health itself: not the absence of disease but the condition of resting in what one already is, unclouded by the effort of accumulating more knowledge. Sarva-vismaraṇa, 'forgetting everything,' sounds like anti-intellectualism until read against svāsthya - it is not forgetting facts but forgetting the compulsive project of shoring up an identity through more study, more scripture, more certainty. Chapter 16 opens by warning the disciple that its own eleven verses of instruction cannot themselves deliver what they describe.

Verse 2

bhoga karma samādhi equalvijñanirasta sarva āśamrocayiṣyatiactivity is not the variable

भोगं कर्म समाधिं वा कुरु विज्ञ तथापि ते। चित्तं निरस्तसर्वाशमत्यर्थं रोचयिष्यति॥१६-२॥

bhogaṃ karma samādhiṃ vā kuru vijña tathāpi te| cittaṃ nirastasarvāśamatyarthaṃ rocayiṣyati||16-2||

O wise one, engage in enjoyment, action, or meditative absorption as you please - still your mind, once it has cast off every hope, will delight exceedingly in the Self alone.

Modern Reflection

The verse grants three permissions in one breath - enjoy, act, meditate - which is startling from a text usually read as renunciate. Ashtavakra is not endorsing all three as equally valid paths to liberation; he is saying liberation does not depend on which of the three the disciple chooses, because the real variable is elsewhere: nirasta-sarva-āśam, a mind that has cast off all hope and craving. A Mumbai businessman who has finally stopped needing the next deal to feel complete can sit in a boardroom, at a temple, or on a beach and the quality of his attention stays the same, because rocayiṣyati, 'it will delight,' describes the citta's own settled disposition, not the activity surrounding it. The verse quietly demotes the entire question of lifestyle - active or contemplative, worldly or renounced - to a matter of indifference next to the one thing that actually matters.

Verse 3

āyāsāteffort as the woundsakalo duḥkhīnirvṛtino technique added

आयासात्सकलो दुःखी नैनं जानाति कश्चन। अनेनैवोपदेशेन धन्यः प्राप्नोति निर्वृतिम्॥१६-३॥

āyāsātsakalo duḥkhī nainaṃ jānāti kaścana| anenaivopadeśena dhanyaḥ prāpnoti nirvṛtim||16-3||

Everyone suffers from mere effort/striving, yet no one recognizes this. By this teaching alone, the fortunate one attains supreme peace.

Modern Reflection

Āyāsa, effort or exertion, is not limited to physical labor in this verse - it names the ceaseless inner striving behind every action, including the striving to become spiritual. A Kolkata clerk grinding through decades of overtime for a promotion he may never get is the obvious case, but the verse's real target is subtler: the effort behind trying to feel calm, trying to meditate correctly, trying to be a good enough seeker. Sakalaḥ duḥkhī, 'everyone is miserable,' is a blunt universal claim, softened only by anena eva upadeśena, 'by this very teaching alone' - not a technique added on top of effort but a single recognition that effort itself is the wound. The clerk does not need a better promotion strategy or a better meditation technique; he needs to see that the exertion behind both is the same exertion, and that seeing it is already nirvṛti, cessation.

Verse 4THE FAMOUS 'prince of the lazy' verse - true happiness belongs to supreme effortlessness

ālasya dhurīṇaprince of the lazynimeṣonmeṣayoḥeven blinking is effortno doer sense

व्यापारे खिद्यते यस्तु निमेषोन्मेषयोरपि। तस्यालस्य धुरीणस्य सुखं नन्यस्य कस्यचित्॥१६-४॥

vyāpāre khidyate yastu nimeṣonmeṣayorapi| tasyālasya dhurīṇasya sukhaṃ nanyasya kasyacit||16-4||

He who is wearied by mere activity, even by the opening and closing of his eyelids - happiness belongs to him, the very prince of the lazy, and to no one else.

Modern Reflection

This verse is Ashtavakra at his driest and most quotable - a line commentators love precisely because it sounds like a joke and is not one. Ālasya-dhurīṇa, 'chief of the lazy,' dhurīṇa being a word for the lead bullock bearing the yoke's weight, produces the almost comic image of laziness itself organized into a hierarchy with a champion at its head. But the verse is describing something far from ordinary sloth. Nimeṣonmeṣayor api, 'even in blinking,' names an exhaustion so total that the mind cannot sustain even the minimal effort of voluntary attention - which is not sluggishness but the state of one for whom the sense of 'I am doing this' has fully dissolved. A Varanasi ghat sadhu who appears to do nothing all day is often mistaken for this figure; the verse's real prince of laziness is invisible, since true absence of effort leaves no outward mark to admire.

Verse 5

dvandvaidaṃ kṛtam idaṃ nafour puruṣārthasnirapekṣano checklist

इदं कृतमिदं नेति द्वंद्वैर्मुक्तं यदा मनः। धर्मार्थकाममोक्षेषु निरपेक्षं तदा भवेत्॥१६-५॥

idaṃ kṛtamidaṃ neti dvaṃdvairmuktaṃ yadā manaḥ| dharmārthakāmamokṣeṣu nirapekṣaṃ tadā bhavet||16-5||

When the mind is freed from dualities like 'this is done, this is not done,' it becomes indifferent even to dharma, wealth, desire, and liberation.

Modern Reflection

The four puruṣārthas, dharma-artha-kāma-mokṣa, form the entire scaffolding of a traditional Indian life plan - duty, wealth, pleasure, and finally liberation, usually pursued in that order across a lifetime. This verse does something almost unthinkable within that framework: it names indifference to all four, moksha included, as the actual sign of freedom. A retired Chennai bureaucrat who has dutifully completed each life-stage, raised children, built a house, performed the rituals, and now anxiously pursues moksha as the fourth item on the checklist is still, by this verse's logic, caught in dvandva, the pairing of 'done' and 'not done.' Nirapekṣa, indifferent, does not mean the four goals are abandoned or condemned; it means the mind has stopped keeping score against them, the way a marathon runner past the finish line stops checking her pace.

Verse 6

viraktaḥ viṣaya dveṣṭāaversion is still attachmentgraha mokṣa vihīnashared axis dissolvedneither pole

विरक्तो विषयद्वेष्टा रागी विषयलोलुपः। ग्रहमोक्षविहीनस्तु न विरक्तो न रागवान्॥१६-६॥

virakto viṣayadveṣṭā rāgī viṣayalolupaḥ| grahamokṣavihīnastu na virakto na rāgavān||16-6||

The dispassionate one hates sense-objects; the passionate one craves them. But one free of both grasping and release is neither dispassionate nor impassioned.

Modern Reflection

This verse quietly demolishes the assumption that renunciation is the opposite of attachment, and therefore its cure. Viraktaḥ, the dispassionate one, is described here not as free but as viṣaya-dveṣṭā, a hater of objects - still emotionally entangled with the world, just on the negative side of the ledger rather than the positive. A young man in Rishikesh who has renounced his family business, wears ochre robes, and speaks contemptuously of anyone still 'in the world' is, by this verse's precise diagnosis, still rāgavān in reverse - his aversion is as gripped as the businessman's craving. Graha-mokṣa-vihīna, 'free of both grasping and release,' describes a third position the verse refuses to name positively, since any name would turn it into a fourth camp to defend. The sage simply has nothing left to push toward or away from.

Verse 7

heyopādeyatāsaṃsāra vitapa aṅkuraḥspṛhānirvicāra daśāsorting mind as root

हेयोपादेयता तावत्संसारविटपांकुरः। स्पृहा जीवति यावद् वै निर्विचारदशास्पदम्॥१६-७॥

heyopādeyatā tāvatsaṃsāraviṭapāṃkuraḥ| spṛhā jīvati yāvad vai nirvicāradaśāspadam||16-7||

The sense of what to reject and what to accept remains the sprout of the tree of samsara, only as long as desire - the very seat of the state of non-inquiry - stays alive.

Modern Reflection

The verse offers a small botanical image with large consequences: saṃsāra-vitapa-aṅkura, 'the sprout of the tree of samsara,' identifying not action itself but the categorizing mind - this is to be accepted, this rejected - as the seed from which the entire tree of bound existence grows. A Bengaluru shopper standing before a supermarket shelf, silently sorting brands into worth-buying and not-worth-buying, is running the exact mechanism the verse names, heyopādeyatā, at the most mundane possible scale. The verse does not say categorizing is wrong; it says the categorizing persists only as long as spṛhā, craving, keeps supplying its fuel, and that spṛhā in turn is the āspadam, the seat or foundation, of nirvicāra, the state of not actually inquiring into what any of it means. Stop feeding the craving, and the sprout has nothing left to grow from - not because judgment has been suppressed but because its motive has quietly run dry.

Verse 8

pravṛtti nivṛtti symmetrywithdrawal breeds aversionnirdvandvabāla vatchild simile

प्रवृत्तौ जायते रागो निर्वृत्तौ द्वेष एव हि। निर्द्वन्द्वो बालवद् धीमान् एवमेव व्यवस्थितः॥१६-८॥

pravṛttau jāyate rāgo nirvṛttau dveṣa eva hi| nirdvandvo bālavad dhīmān evameva vyavasthitaḥ||16-8||

Attachment is born in activity, aversion indeed in withdrawal. The wise one, free of these opposites, remains established simply like a child.

Modern Reflection

The verse catches a trap that spiritual seekers routinely walk into without noticing: withdrawing from the world, nivṛtti, is not automatically superior to engaging with it, pravṛtti, because withdrawal generates its own attachment, dveṣa, aversion to the world just left behind. A Rishikesh ashram resident who has given up his job, family, and city life may feel he has moved from rāga to freedom, when the verse's diagnosis is that he has simply swapped attraction for its mirror-image, an equally gripping aversion to everything he renounced. Bāla-vat, 'like a child,' is the verse's surprising positive model - not a child's innocence in the sentimental sense, but a child's lack of any fixed position for or against activity itself, moving toward a toy and away from it with the same unburdened ease, neither choice accumulating into an identity.

Verse 9

duḥkha jihāsārenunciation as cravingvīta rāganirduḥkha not contingent on exitpeace without departure

हातुमिच्छति संसारं रागी दुःखजिहासया। वीतरागो हि निर्दुःखस्तस्मिन्नपि न खिद्यति॥१६-९॥

hātumicchati saṃsāraṃ rāgī duḥkhajihāsayā| vītarāgo hi nirduḥkhastasminnapi na khidyati||16-9||

The passionate one wishes to abandon the world out of a desire to escape suffering. But the one truly free of passion, being free of suffering, is not troubled even while remaining in it.

Modern Reflection

The verse quietly separates two people who look identical from the outside - both apparently wanting to leave saṃsāra, the entangled world - but are driven by opposite conditions. The rāgī, still gripped by attachment, wants out because the world currently hurts, duḥkha-jihāsā, the wish to be rid of suffering; his renunciation is itself a form of craving, just craving for absence instead of presence. A Mumbai stockbroker who quits after a catastrophic loss and swears off the market forever has not become vairāgī in Ashtavakra's sense; he has simply redirected the same intensity that drove his trading into an equally charged aversion. Vīta-rāga, one from whom rāga has genuinely departed, needs no exit at all, because nirduḥkha, freedom from suffering, was never contingent on which side of the market, or the world, he happened to occupy.

Verse 10

abhimāna in liberationmamatā toward the bodyduḥkha bhākpride relocated not dissolvedno partial credit

यस्याभिमानो मोक्षेऽपि देहेऽपि ममता तथा। न च ज्ञानी न वा योगी केवलं दुःखभागसौ॥१६-१०॥

yasyābhimāno mokṣe'pi dehe'pi mamatā tathā| na ca jñānī na vā yogī kevalaṃ duḥkhabhāgasau||16-10||

One who takes pride even in liberation, and still feels possessiveness toward the body, is neither a knower nor a yogi - he is simply a sharer in suffering.

Modern Reflection

Abhimāna, pride or self-regard, applied to mokṣa itself is the verse's sharpest turn: it identifies spiritual attainment as a place where the ego can relocate rather than dissolve. A well-known Bengaluru satsang speaker who has genuinely studied Advaita for decades but visibly bristles when a student questions his realization is exhibiting exactly what this verse names - mokṣe api abhimānaḥ, pride even in liberation. Mamatā, possessiveness, toward the deha, the body, sitting alongside spiritual pride is the verse's second diagnostic: a teacher fastidious about his seat, his robes, his followers' deference is still organizing life around a 'mine' the teaching he preaches claims to have dissolved. Duḥkha-bhāk, 'a mere sharer in suffering,' is a quietly devastating verdict - not condemnation as a fraud, simply the observation that pride and possessiveness guarantee continued participation in exactly the pain the teaching was meant to end.

Verse 11THE FAMOUS closing verse - not even Shiva, Vishnu, or Brahma can substitute for forgetting everything

frame repeats 16 1hara hari kamalajatrimūrti cannot substituteclosing inclusioteacher points does not transmit

हरो यद्युपदेष्टा ते हरिः कमलजोऽपि वा। तथापि न तव स्वाथ्यं सर्वविस्मरणादृते॥१६-११॥

haro yadyupadeṣṭā te hariḥ kamalajo'pi vā| tathāpi na tava svāthyaṃ sarvavismaraṇādṛte||16-11||

Even if Shiva, Vishnu, or lotus-born Brahma himself were your teacher, you would still find no true rest except by forgetting everything.

Modern Reflection

This verse closes Chapter 16 by returning almost word for word to its opening line, forming a frame around the whole section, but now naming the highest possible teachers by name - Hara, Hari, and Kamalaja, Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma, the entire trimūrti. The escalation is deliberate: if even the creator, sustainer, and dissolver of the universe cannot deliver svāsthya through teaching alone, then no human guru, however revered, can either. A devotee at a Haridwar ashram who has sought darshan from a famous swami for thirty years, believing proximity to greatness will eventually transfer realization, is the verse's precise target. The teaching cannot be received the way a gift is received; sarva-vismaraṇa, forgetting everything, is not information the teacher hands over but a release the disciple alone can allow, regardless of whose voice delivered the instruction.

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