Ashtavakra and King Janaka

Ashtavakra Gita

  • 20 chapters
  • 298 verses
Read chapter 1Where to start
The line people know, 1.11, Ashtavakra to Janaka:

मुक्ताभिमानी मुक्तो हि बद्धो बद्धाभिमान्यपि । किंवदन्तीह सत्येयं या मतिः सा गतिर्भवेत् ॥

muktābhimānī mukto hi baddho baddhābhimānyapi | kiṃvadantīha satyeyaṃ yā matiḥ sā gatirbhavet ||

One who thinks 'I am free' is free. One who thinks 'I am bound' stays bound. The old saying is true: as you hold yourself, so you become.

The Ashtavakra Gita is a Sanskrit dialogue between the sage Ashtavakra and King Janaka of Mithila about the Self. It has 20 chapters and 298 verses in the common text. It stands on its own, outside the Mahabharata, and scholars date it anywhere from about 500 BCE to the 14th century CE.

The whole text is one conversation. A king who has everything asks how to be free. A young sage, named for the eight bends in his body, tells him he already is: he is the witness of body and mind, and bondage is only the belief that he is bound. Janaka sees it, and spends the rest of the text testing it against wealth, desire, practice and death. It has almost no story or ritual, and it gives no instructions. Most readers start with one line and stay with it for a while.

Where to start

Want one a day? Seven mornings with the Ashtavakra Gita.

The lines people quote

The twenty lines people quote most

The 20 chapters

298 verses. Janaka asks in 1.1; Ashtavakra teaches most chapters; Janaka answers in chapters 2, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 19 and 20.

Next to the Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita teaches through a crisis on a battlefield and joins action, devotion and knowledge. The Ashtavakra Gita has no crisis and keeps to knowledge alone. Most readers start with the Bhagavad Gita. Compare the two side by side, or see the other Gitas in Hindu tradition.

Questions people ask

How many chapters and verses does the Ashtavakra Gita have?
Twenty chapters and 298 verses in the common text. Chapter 18 alone has 100 verses, a third of the whole. Chapters 5, 6, 8 and 14 have only four verses each.
Who are the speakers?
Two people. King Janaka of Mithila asks the opening question in 1.1, and the sage Ashtavakra answers. Ashtavakra teaches in chapters 1, 3, 5, 8 to 11 and 15 to 18. Janaka speaks chapters 2, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 19 and 20, describing what he has seen. Editions differ on chapter 4; we follow those that give it to Janaka.
Is the Ashtavakra Gita part of the Mahabharata?
No. It is an independent text, also called the Ashtavakra Samhita. The sage Ashtavakra does appear in the Mahabharata: in the Vana Parva, the sage Lomasha tells the Pandavas how the boy Ashtavakra defeated the court debater Bandi at King Janaka's sacrifice. The Gita itself is not in the epic.
When was it written?
Nobody knows. Radhakamal Mukerjee placed it around 500 to 400 BCE. J. L. Brockington placed it much later, in the 8th century CE among followers of Shankara, or in the 14th century. Others argue it predates Gaudapada, around the 6th century CE. The text gives no date and names no author.
What does it teach?
That you are already free. You are the witness of body and mind, and bondage is only the belief that you are bound (1.11). It is a text of Advaita Vedanta and follows the path of knowledge, with almost no instruction on ritual, devotion or practice.
Where should I start reading?
Read chapter 1 first: twenty verses that hold the whole teaching. Then chapter 15, where Ashtavakra says it again in different words, and then chapter 18 at your own pace. If you want one verse a day, the seven-mornings plan on this site picks seven.
Which translation do you use?
The English here is Wisdom's own, made from the Sanskrit and read with the traditional Advaita commentaries. We used Lala Baij Nath's 1907 translation, which is in the public domain, as a reference. Every note is marked as reviewed or not.

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Sources and method

Sanskrit from the common text of the Ashtavakra Gita, also called the Ashtavakra Samhita. Where our source had obvious typing errors we restored the standard reading and listed each change in our review notes. IAST is generated from the Devanagari. The English, the word meanings and the notes are Wisdom's own, written in the Advaita tradition of Shankara's school, the line followed by commentators such as Swami Nityaswarupananda and Swami Chinmayananda, with Lala Baij Nath's public-domain translation of 1907 as a reference.

Wisdom translation, edited by Ankur Shukla. Commentary AI-drafted, human review pending.