Text
Ashtavakra Gitaअष्टावक्र गीता
A short non-dual dialogue between Ashtavakra and King Janaka, uncompromising in its treatment of the self as already free.
Overview
A dialogue in roughly three hundred verses between the sage Ashtavakra and King Janaka. It is brief, direct, and unusually free of ritual and cosmological material.
Its subject is the identity of the self with unconditioned awareness, stated without the graded preliminaries most comparable texts supply.
Period and language
Textual evidenceThe text is generally classed with the Advaita literature. Its date is uncertain and estimates vary widely; attribution to a single historical author is not established.
Several English translations exist and differ considerably in tone, which matters more than usual for a text this compressed.
Ashtavakra Gita; see Nityaswarupananda, trans., Advaita Ashrama
Decoded reading
Decoded readingThe Trust's six-part treatment reads the dialogue as a sequence rather than a set of declarations — the seeker's question, the loosening of attachment to objects, the release of identification with the elements, the disposition of one who genuinely wants liberation, the witness state, and the admission of not-knowing that makes the rest usable.
Interpretation, and clearly marked as such.
Triidha Foundation — Asthavakra MahaGita, parts 1–6 (Shree Vyas Ji), Trust YouTube channel
Related
- Sadhanacites
- नाद ब्रह्मcontrasts with