‘Tattva-svarupa’ is the seventeenth chapter, and it rewards a look at how the Sanskrit is built. Tattva and svarupa join to form ‘the original nature,’ or ‘the very form of truth.’ This compound word is kin to the Bhagavad Gita’s ‘tattva-vetta,’ the knower of truth (4.34), where Krishna tells you to go to the one who knows the truth of things and learn from him. In modern times, Swami Rama Tirtha (1873-1906) quoted this very chapter of the Ashtavakra Gita again and again in his American lectures. On his 1903 tour of California, he gave three talks on Ashtavakra.Textual context
The Nature of Truth
The nature of the sage · 20 shlokas
Ashtavakra is drawing a portrait now. Across twenty shlokas, the nature of the sage who is freed while still living. Each shloka is a single line of the sketch. Reading them, a question rises inside you: can such a thing even be?
Here Ashtavakra speaks at length on the nature of truth. What is the real form of truth? That question kept surfacing all through the age of philosophy that followed Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Ashtavakra’s answer is plain: the true nature is no doer, no enjoyer, it simply is.
So far
After coming to rest in the self, the nature of truth. The inner making of the sage.
Ashtavakra first points to the man who has won both the fruit of knowledge and the fruit of yoga practice. He is content, his senses are clear, and he delights forever in being alone. This aloneness is a mark of fullness, and there is no sadness in it. He goes on to say that such a knower of truth never grieves in this world, because he knows that this whole sphere of the cosmos is filled by that one alone. When the one alone pervades everything, the ache of loneliness has nowhere left to arise.
Shlokas 1 · 2
तेन ज्ञानफलं प्राप्तं योगाभ्यासफलं तथा।
तृप्तः स्वच्छेन्द्रियो नित्यमेकाकी रमते तु यः॥
न कदाचिज्जगत्यस्मिन्तत्त्वज्ञो हन्त खिद्यति।
यत एकेन तेनेदं पूर्णं ब्रह्माण्डमण्डलम्॥
Sense objects can never gladden the man who takes his ease within himself, the way the bitter leaves of the neem hold no lure for an elephant already lost in the sweet leaves of the sallaki. Once the taste of the inner joy has been caught, outer tastes turn flat, and this comes on its own, with no forcing. There is more: the man who is not bound by the memory of pleasures already tasted, and who carries no longing for those not yet tasted, is rare in this world. Seekers of pleasure are many, seekers of moksha can be seen as well, yet the great soul who has let go of both pleasure and moksha alike is rarely found.
Shlokas 3 · 4 · 5
न जातु विषयाः केऽपि स्वारामं हर्षयन्त्यमी।
सल्लकीपल्लवप्रीतमिवेभं निम्बपल्लवाः॥
यस्तु भोगेषु भुक्तेषु न भवत्यधिवासितः।
अभुक्तेषु निराकाङ्क्षी तादृशो भवदुर्लभः॥
बुभुक्षुरिह संसारे मुमुक्षुरपि दृश्यते।
भोगमोक्षनिराकाङ्क्षी विरलो हि महाशयः॥
For anyone of large and open mind, nothing in dharma, wealth, desire, moksha, or even in living and dying remains a thing to be pushed away or seized. A man’s whole run of life is spent grappling with these six, and the sage stands beyond all six. He has no wish for the world to dissolve and no hatred for its going on. On whatever livelihood comes to him without strain, that blessed man lives in ease, with no hunger for more and no grudge at less. And having known that ‘with this knowledge we are fulfilled,’ he lets his intellect melt away right there, and then, even while seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and eating, he stays in ease. The acts all keep happening, yet the sense of ‘we are doing’ has dissolved.
Shlokas 6 · 7 · 8
धर्मार्थकाममोक्षेषु जीविते मरणे तथा।
कस्याप्युदारचित्तस्य हेयोपादेयता न हि॥
वाञ्छा न विश्वविलये न द्वेषस्तस्य च स्थितौ।
यथा जीविकया तस्माद् धन्य आस्ते यथासुखम्॥
कृतार्थोऽनेन ज्ञानेनेत्येवं गलितधीः कृती।
पश्यन् शृण्वन् स्पृशन् जिघ्रन्न् अश्नन्नस्ते यथासुखम्॥
For the man whose ocean of worldly wandering has run dry, the gaze is empty, effort seems pointless, the senses hang loose. No craving for anything is left in him, and no aversion to anything either. The eye does see, yet no clinging stays in the seeing. The state of that freed mind is stranger still: he seems neither quite awake nor quite asleep, he neither opens his eyes nor shuts them. Ah, that highest state of the freed mind unfolds in some altogether other world, where the very line between waking and sleeping falls away.
Shlokas 9 · 10
शून्या दृष्टिर्वृथा चेष्टा विकलानीन्द्रियाणि च।
न स्पृहा न विरक्तिर्वा क्षीणसंसारसागरे॥
न जागर्ति न निद्राति नोन्मीलति न मीलति।
अहो परदशा क्वापि वर्तते मुक्तचेतसः॥
Such a freed man looks at ease wherever he is, and everywhere his intent is clear. Loosed from every buried urge, in whatever place he happens to be, right there he reigns. This regal bearing is a light that shines out on its own from the freedom from desire within, and it owes nothing to any outward pose. Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, grasping, speaking, and walking, cut loose from the bondage of both wanting and not wanting, that great soul is free indeed. Eight ordinary acts keep running on, yet inside him no subtle prompting is pulling at them.
Shlokas 11 · 12
सर्वत्र दृश्यते स्वस्थः सर्वत्र विमलाशयः।
समस्तवासनामुक्तो मुक्तः सर्वत्र राजते॥
पश्यन् शृण्वन् स्पृशन् जिघ्रन्न् अश्नन् गृह्णन् वदन् व्रजन्।
ईहितानीहितैर्मुक्तो मुक्त एव महाशयः॥
He neither blames anyone nor praises them, neither rejoices nor rages, neither gives nor takes. Everywhere his mind stays flavorless, as if the grip of any single taste had let go for good. Whether a woman full of passion comes and stands before him or death itself arrives at the door, his mind is not shaken, he holds steady and at ease, and this is the touchstone of his freedom. Joy or sorrow, man or woman, fortune or ruin, for that steady man there is no difference anywhere, everywhere he sees with an even eye.
Shlokas 13 · 14 · 15
न निन्दति न च स्तौति न हृष्यति न कुप्यति।
न ददाति न गृह्णाति मुक्तः सर्वत्र नीरसः॥
सानुरागां स्त्रियं दृष्ट्वा मृत्युं वा समुपस्थितम्।
अविह्वलमनाः स्वस्थो मुक्त एव महाशयः॥
सुखे दुःखे नरे नार्यां सम्पत्सु च विपत्सु च।
विशेषो नैव धीरस्य सर्वत्र समदर्शिनः॥
In the man whose wandering through the world has run out, there is no violence, no pity, no arrogance, no meekness, no astonishment, and no disturbance of any kind. No pity either, and hearing that gives you a start, yet in Ashtavakra’s eyes pity too is only a feeling, and the sage stands beyond feelings. He does help, but without drowning within in any pain. Such a freed man neither hates sense objects nor hungers greedily for them. With an unattached mind he goes on receiving with ease both what comes and what does not.
Shlokas 16 · 17
न हिंसा नैव कारुण्यं नौद्धत्यं न च दीनता।
नाश्चर्यं विकृतिर्नैव क्षीणसंसरणे नरे॥
न मुक्तो विषयद्वेष्टा न वा विषयलोलुपः।
असंसक्तमना नित्यं प्राप्ताप्राप्तमुपाश्नुते॥
Composure and its loss, gain and harm, all these choices the man of emptied mind simply does not register, as though he were seated in kaivalya itself. His mind is now clear of categories and verdicts. Free of possessiveness, free of ego, settled in the certainty that nothing holds any substance, with every hope inside him already melted, he does nothing even as he acts. And at the last, released from the mind’s light, its bewilderment, its dreaming, and its dullness, he reaches some state past all words, where the mind has melted through and through. Here Ashtavakra’s portrait is complete, twenty sketched lines, twenty angles on the sage. Do not try to take them on one at a time. Simply recognize that this state is possible.
Shlokas 18 · 19 · 20
समाधानासमाधानहिताहितविकल्पनाः।
शून्यचित्तो न जानाति कैवल्यमिव संस्थितः॥
निर्ममो निरहंकारो न किञ्चिदिति निश्चितः।
अन्तर्गलितसर्वाशः कुर्वन्नपि करोति न॥
मनःप्रकाशसम्मोहस्वप्नजाड्यविवर्जितः।
दशां कामपि सम्प्राप्तो भवेद् गलितमानसः॥