# Ashtavakra Gita *Traditionally attributed to the sage Ashtavakra. A Sanskrit Advaita Vedanta dialogue, also called the Ashtavakra Samhita or "Song of Ashtavakra".* > I read the whole English text in the John Richards translation on Wikisource, plus Wikipedia, and the vault note for the video. I did not read the Sanskrit or any other translation or commentary. Verse numbers below follow Richards. ## 1. Book facts | | | |---|---| | Title | *Aṣṭāvakra Gītā* (also *Aṣṭāvakra Saṃhitā*) | | Attributed author | Ashtavakra, a sage of the Mahabharata and Puranas ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra)) | | Form | Dialogue between Ashtavakra and King Janaka of Mithila on the Self (Atman), reality and bondage | | Language | Sanskrit | | Date | Disputed: see section 5 | | Length | 20 chapters; the Richards translation numbers 298 verses (my count of the last verse in each chapter; chapter XVIII alone has 100) | | Publisher / ISBN | Not applicable: many editions; none picked | **Where it came up.** - Video: [The Most Dangerous Book Ever Written About Reality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSznFNrU7o), *Advaita Awakenings with Gaurav*. - Mention: [1:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSznFNrU7o&t=92s), where the video introduces the text. - Vault note: [[Video Summaries/Advaita Awakenings with Gaurav/The Most Dangerous Book Ever Written About Reality]]. ## 2. Book resources **Reference pages** - Wikipedia: [Ashtavakra Gita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita); [Ashtavakra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra). - [Wikiquote: Ashtavakra Gita](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita) (page exists; not read). **Where to get it** - **Free English text, legal:** [Wikisource, *The Ashtavakra Gita*, translated by John Richards](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita). The translator's note on the page says it is "presented to the public domain" (dated 28.5.94), and Wikisource tags the translation as released to the public domain. - **Free Sanskrit text:** [Sanskrit Wikisource](https://sa.wikisource.org/wiki/अष्टावक्रगीता) (page exists; text not checked). - **Major translations and commentaries** (from Wikipedia's list; copyright status of each not checked, so no free copies claimed): Lala Baij Nath (1907, first English translation); Swami Nityaswarupananda (1929-31, word-by-word); Radhakamal Mukerjee (1971); Thomas Byrom, *The Heart of Awareness* (Shambhala, 1990); John Richards (1997 print publication per Wikipedia); Swami Chinmayananda (commentary); Osho (91 discourses, *Ashtavakra Mahageeta*); Alexandra David-Néel (French, 1951). - **Audiobook:** no LibriVox recording found (its catalog search for "ashtavakra" returned "Audiobooks could not be found"). Internet Archive hosts lectures and recordings, for example [Swami Jyotirmayananda's lecture series item](https://archive.org/details/AshtavakraGita050109_675); I did not check their licences. - **Libraries:** [Libby search](https://libbyapp.com/search/query-ashtavakra%20gita); availability unconfirmed. ## 3. Author biography **Ashtavakra** ("eight deformities") is a legendary Vedic sage; little is known of when he lived ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra)). According to the legends there: - His mother Sujata was the daughter of the sage Aruni; his father Kahoda was Aruni's student. While still in the womb, he corrected his father's Vedic recitation, and was cursed to be born crooked in eight places. - Kahoda was defeated in debate by Vandin at King Janaka's court and drowned. At about age ten, Ashtavakra went to Janaka's sacrifice, defeated Vandin, and Vandin revealed the drowned Brahmans were alive (a ritual of his father Varuna). Kahoda told his son to bathe in the river Samanga, and Ashtavakra's deformities were healed. - Ashtavakra is mentioned in the Ramayana (Yuddha Kanda 6.119.17) as the son who redeemed Kahoda. - Wikipedia says the *Gita* is attributed to him by tradition. Whether the same Ashtavakra of the Mahabharata wrote it is "not clearly stated in any of the texts". ## 4. Author interviews and talks None: a legendary figure. Modern teachers on the text, listed by Wikipedia and unwatched by me: Osho (*Ashtavakra Mahageeta*, 91 discourses), Swami Chinmayananda, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai. The video that sent me here is [The Most Dangerous Book Ever Written About Reality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSznFNrU7o) (Gaurav, *Advaita Awakenings*), which I know through the vault note, not by watching. ## 5. Summary **Thesis.** Liberation is not something to be achieved: the Self is already free, pure awareness, a witness that does not act, and bondage is only the mistaken belief that one is a separate doer. Wikipedia calls it "a radical version of non-dualist philosophy" that insists on the unreality of the external world and mentions no morality or duties. Richards' chapter I does include a line to "practise tolerance, sincerity, compassion, contentment and truthfulness" (I.2), but chapter I then moves to "you are neither the doer nor the reaper of the consequences" (I.6). **Dating.** Radhakamal Mukerjee: c. 500-400 BCE, just after the Bhagavad Gita. J. L. Brockington: eighth century CE (a follower of Shankara) or fourteenth century. Swami Shantananda Puri: before Gaudapada (6th century CE), since it contains the seed of *ajata vada*. (All per Wikipedia.) **Chapter outline** (Wikipedia's chapter names, with speaker and content as I read them in Richards): 1. **I, Saksi (Witness).** Janaka asks how knowledge, liberation and dispassion come. Ashtavakra: you are the witness of everything, not the doer; "bitten by the black snake of the self-opinion that 'I am the doer'" drink the nectar of "I am not the doer" (I.8); the mirror and jar similes (I.19-20). 2. **II, Ascaryam (Marvel).** Janaka's first reply: he realises the world is nothing but himself, as waves are water (II.4). 3. **III, Atmadvaita.** Ashtavakra to Janaka: a self-knower has no appetite for wealth, as the shell is mistaken for silver. 4. **IV, Sarvamatma.** Ashtavakra: the wise are not like worldly "beasts of burden". 5. **V, Laya (Dissolution).** Ashtavakra: you are not bound; the world arises out of you like a bubble from the sea. 6. **VI, Prakrteh Parah.** Ashtavakra voices the realisation himself ("I am infinite like space"); neither renunciation nor acceptance remains. 7. **VII, Santa.** Janaka: the infinite ocean of myself, in which the world wave rises and falls. 8. **VIII, Moksa.** Ashtavakra defines bondage as the mind longing, grieving or grasping; liberation as its absence. 9. **IX, Nirveda; X, Vairagya.** Indifference and dispassion: possessions and relations are "a dream or a three or five-day conjuror's show". 10. **XI, Cittrupa; XII, Svabhava; XIII, Yathasukham; XIV, Isvara.** Peace beyond desire; Janaka describes his own state, and in XIII "I live as I please". 11. **XV, Tattvam.** Ashtavakra: knowledge by even casual instruction; liberation is distaste for sense objects, bondage is love of them (20 verses). 12. **XVI, Svasthya; XVII, Kaivalya.** You may recite scriptures but will not be established "until you can forget everything" (XVI); the content, solitary knower of truth (XVII, 20 verses). 13. **XVIII, Jivanmukti.** The longest chapter (100 verses): praise of awareness; the liberated person is content in all circumstances and in XVIII.12 there is "no religion, wealth, sensuality or discrimination" for a yogi free from opposites. 14. **XIX, Svamahima; XX, Akincanabhava.** Janaka's last statements: in XIX "there is no religion, sensuality, possessions, philosophy, duality or even non-duality"; in XX "there are no elements, no body, no faculties, no mind", no scripture, no knowledge or ignorance. **Key ideas:** non-doership; the witness; unreality of the world compared to a dream (snake in a rope, imagined at I.10); bondage as thought ("Thinking makes it so", I.11); no practice, even stilling the mind, is the cause of bondage (I.15). ## 6. Fact-check Overall verdict: **mixed**. The text's contents match the video's quotations; the dating ("over 2,000 years ago") and some of the surrounding story are not supported. | Claim (from the video note) | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | Janaka asks how knowledge, liberation and dispassion come | Supported | Richards, I.1 on [Wikisource](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita) | | The "doer" snake and "I am not the doer" quote | Supported | Richards I.8 | | The text is "over 2,000 years ago" | Disputed | Dating ranges from c. 500-400 BCE (Mukerjee) to the 8th or 14th century CE (Brockington) ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita)) | | Ashtavakra's body was bent in eight places | Traditional legend | Name means "eight deformities"; story is from the epics and Puranas ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra)), not in the *Gita* | | The court laughed and he called them "cobblers" | Unverified | I found no source in the text or Wikipedia; the video note itself flags this as a later retelling | | The *Gita* skips rules and practices | Mostly supported | Wikipedia: no morality or duties; but I.2 does recommend virtues and the text does say no practice is needed | | Ramana Maharshi advised rereading it | Unverified | Wikipedia says he knew and quoted it; the specific advice is not stated | | The dream of the starving beggar and "neither is real" | Not in the text | The Richards text has dream and beggar only in passing (X.2, XVIII); I found no source for the story | ## 7. Citations and references - John Richards (trans.), [The Ashtavakra Gita](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita), Wikisource (public-domain release, 1994). - Wikipedia: [Ashtavakra Gita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita); [Ashtavakra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra). - [Sanskrit Wikisource: अष्टावक्रगीता](https://sa.wikisource.org/wiki/अष्टावक्रगीता). - [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita). - Video: [The Most Dangerous Book Ever Written About Reality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSznFNrU7o), *Advaita Awakenings with Gaurav*.