“Knowledge of truth” is the fifteenth chapter. The knowledge of reality. In the Indian view of epistemology this knowledge has two levels, the indirect (paroksha, reached through verbal testimony) and the direct (aparoksha, reached through the evidence of experience). Ashtavakra puts his weight on direct knowledge. In modern philosophy, the distinction Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) drew between ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ and ‘knowledge by description’ resembles Ashtavakra’s distinction between the indirect and the direct.Textual context
Knowledge of Truth
Knowledge of Truth · 20 shlokas
The whole of non-duality fits inside these twenty verses. Every verse is a jewel in its own right, and this chapter rewards the seeker who returns to it again and again. Here Ashtavakra speaks to his disciple in the most direct and the most concentrated terms.
The fifteenth chapter takes up tattva-jnana, the “knowledge of truth”. Tattva-jnana means “the knowledge of the root reality”, and it is a central term in the Sanskrit philosophical tradition. In his short work Tattva-bodha (eighth century), Adi Shankaracharya gave this very subject only three pages, and it became a foundational text of Vedanta instruction.
So far
After stillness, knowledge of truth. The philosophy, formally defined.
At the very first step Ashtavakra sketches two kinds of seeker. The one whose intellect is clear is fulfilled by any teaching at all; a single note is enough, and the truth settles inside him the moment he hears it. The other stays a seeker his whole life and still remains tangled and spellbound in that same truth. Then he sets down the shortest definition of moksha and bondage: when relish for sense-objects dries up, that is moksha; when relish for sense-objects lingers, that is bondage. This much alone is the whole of the science, and the choice beyond it he leaves to the disciple: do as you wish. He adds a warning as well. Whoever descends into this knowledge of truth, however eloquent, wise, and tireless he once was, turns outwardly mute, inert, and idle, and for that reason people sunk in pleasure abandon this knowledge.
Shlokas 1 · 2 · 3
यथातथोपदेशेन कृतार्थः सत्त्वबुद्धिमान्।
आजीवमपि जिज्ञासुः परस्तत्र विमुह्यति॥
मोक्षो विषयवैरस्यं बन्धो वैषयिको रसः।
एतावदेव विज्ञानं यथेच्छसि तथा कुरु॥
वाग्मिप्राज्ञमहोद्योगं जनं मूकजडालसम्।
करोति तत्त्वबोधोऽयमतस्त्यक्तो बुभुक्षिभिः॥
Now he turns straight to the disciple and sets his real nature before him. You are not the body, and the body is not yours; you are neither the enjoyer nor the doer. You are consciousness itself, forever the witness, dependent on nothing; move through the world happily in that independence. Then it is the mind’s turn. Attachment and aversion are properties of the mind, and that mind was never yours at all. You are free of all alternatives, awareness itself, changeless; walk happily in this recognition. And he widens the recognition: know the self in all beings and all beings in the self, and then ego and possessiveness fall away together, and happiness settles in of its own accord.
Shlokas 4 · 5 · 6
न त्वं देहो न ते देहो भोक्ता कर्ता न वा भवान्।
चिद्रूपोऽसि सदा साक्षी निरपेक्षः सुखं चर॥
रागद्वेषौ मनोधर्मौ न मनस्ते कदाचन।
निर्विकल्पोऽसि बोधात्मा निर्विकारः सुखं चर॥
सर्वभूतेषु चात्मानं सर्वभूतानि चात्मनि।
विज्ञाय निरहङ्कारो निर्ममस्त्वं सुखी भव॥
From this height he lifts an image. As waves rise in the sea, so this entire universe shimmers into being within you, O form of consciousness, and you are that; there is not a grain of doubt in it, so let the fever of the mind, that inner restlessness, come down. And where the cord of reason runs short, he offers the support of faith. Have faith, dear child, have faith, do not fall into delusion here; you are the Lord whose very nature is knowledge, the self that stands beyond nature.
Shlokas 7 · 8
विश्वं स्फुरति यत्रेदं तरङ्गा इव सागरे।
तत्त्वमेव न सन्देहश्चिन्मूर्ते विज्वरो भव॥
श्रद्धस्व तात श्रद्धस्व नात्र मोहं कुरुष्व भोः।
ज्ञानस्वरूपो भगवानात्मा त्वं प्रकृतेः परः॥
Now he lays a hand on the root of grief. The body wrapped in the qualities stays, arrives, and departs; the self goes nowhere and comes from nowhere, so what is there here to mourn? Whether the body holds on until the end of a kalpa or leaves this very day, you whose nature is pure consciousness gain nothing and lose nothing. You are the boundless great ocean, in which this wave shaped like a universe rises by its own nature and sets of its own accord; this rising and falling neither swells you nor diminishes you.
Shlokas 9 · 10 · 11
गुणैः संवेष्टितो देहस्तिष्ठत्यायाति याति च।
आत्मा न गन्ता नागन्ता किमेनमनुशोचसि॥
देहस्तिष्ठतु कल्पान्तं गच्छत्वद्यैव वा पुनः।
क्व वृद्धिः क्व च वा हानिस्तव चिन्मात्ररूपिणः॥
त्वय्यनन्तमहाम्भोधौ विश्ववीचिः स्वभावतः।
उदेतु वास्तमायातु न ते वृद्धिर्न वा क्षतिः॥
He deepens this same thread one turn after the next. Dear child, your nature is pure consciousness, and this world is not separate from you at all; so for whom, how, and where could the idea of renouncing and grasping arise? In you, who are one, imperishable, the still and spotless sky of consciousness, where is birth, where is action, where is ego? And he shows this non-difference through the example of gold: whatever you look upon, you alone shine forth there; do the bangle, the armlet, and the anklet ever appear as anything apart from the gold?
Shlokas 12 · 13 · 14
तात चिन्मात्ररूपोऽसि न ते भिन्नमिदं जगत्।
अतः कस्य कथं कुत्र हेयोपादेयकल्पना॥
एकस्मिन्नव्यये शान्ते चिदाकाशेऽमले त्वयि।
कुतो जन्म कुतो कर्म कुतोऽहंकार एव च॥
यत्त्वं पश्यसि तत्रैकस्त्वमेव प्रतिभाससे।
किं पृथग्भासते स्वर्णात्कटकाङ्गदनूपुरम्॥
Now he asks you to rub out every line of identity. This is me, this is not me: let that division go; settle that all is the self alone, and, free of every intention, become happy. This universe appears only through your own ignorance; in ultimate truth you stand alone; apart from you there is no one bound to the world and no one free of it. And the one who has settled that this whole universe is mere illusion, that nothing exists at all, that person, free of craving, pure awareness, looks so still from the outside as though nothing were there.
Shlokas 15 · 16 · 17
अयं सोऽहमयं नाहं विभागमिति सन्त्यज।
सर्वमात्मेति निश्चित्य निःसङ्कल्पः सुखी भव॥
तवैवाज्ञानतो विश्वं त्वमेकः परमार्थतः।
त्वत्तोऽन्यो नास्ति संसारी नासंसारी च कश्चन॥
भ्रान्तिमात्रमिदं विश्वं न किञ्चिदिति निश्चयी।
निर्वासनः स्फूर्तिमात्रो न किञ्चिदिव शाम्यति॥
Toward the close Ashtavakra binds the three times into one. In this ocean of the world there was one alone, there is one alone, and there will be one alone; you have no bondage and no moksha; all that was to be done is done, so now, having accomplished everything, walk on happily. Then he sets a finger on the two stirrings of the mind: O consciousness itself, do not trouble the mind with intention and doubt; grow calm, and rest happily in your own self, whose very form is bliss. And in the final verse he says the most daring thing of all: give up even meditation, hold nothing in the heart; you are the self, you are already free, so what will you accomplish now by thinking it over? Right here the fifteenth chapter carries you past thought and comes to rest.
Shlokas 18 · 19 · 20
एक एव भवाम्भोधावासीदस्ति भविष्यति।
न ते बन्धोऽस्ति मोक्षो वा कृत्यकृत्यः सुखं चर॥
मा सङ्कल्पविकल्पाभ्यां चित्तं क्षोभय चिन्मय।
उपशाम्य सुखं तिष्ठ स्वात्मन्यानन्दविग्रहे॥
त्यजैव ध्यानं सर्वत्र मा किञ्चिद् हृदि धारय।
आत्मा त्वं मुक्त एवासि किं विमृश्य करिष्यसि॥