The Aṣṭāvakra Gītā (अष्टावक्र गीता)

Executive summary

The Aṣṭāvakra (अष्टावक्र) Gītā (गीता) is a dialogue of twenty chapters and 298 verses. King Janaka asks, and the sage Aṣṭāvakra (अष्टावक्र) answers. In this edition Janaka also speaks whole chapters later, including the last two. The teaching is that the self is the witness, not the body and not the elements, and that bondage is a turn of the mind. It sits on the Advaita shelf beside the Upadeśasāhasrī (उपदेशसाहस्री). The speaker of each chapter is the one this edition's uvāca (उवाच) names.

नेपालीमा

अष्टावक्रगीता बीस अध्याय र २९८ श्लोकको संवाद हो। राजा जनक सोध्छन्, र ऋषि अष्टावक्र जवाफ दिन्छन्। यो संस्करणमा जनकले पछि पूरै अध्याय पनि बोल्छन्, अन्तिम दुईसहित। उपदेश यो हो कि आत्मा साक्षी हो, शरीर होइन, तत्व होइन, र बन्धन मनको मोड हो। यो अद्वैतको खण्डमा उपदेशसाहस्रीको छेउमा छ। हरेक अध्यायको वक्ता यो संस्करणको उवाचले भनेको हो।

Chapters

A dialogue. King Janaka (जनक) asks, and the sage Aṣṭāvakra (अष्टावक्र) answers. Twenty chapters, 298 verses. It sits on the Advaita shelf beside the Upadeśasāhasrī (उपदेशसाहस्री) and after the Bhagvad Gītā (भगवद् गीता). Two further dialogues of the same claim are maps, and their lines are not sat: the Avadhūta Gītā, attributed to Dattātreya, and the Ribhu Gītā, the sixth aṃśa of the Śiva Rahasya.

The Sanskrit follows the Sanskrit Documents text of the Aṣṭāvakra Gītā (अष्टावक्र गीता). Each chapter opens with janaka uvāca (जनक उवाच) or aṣṭāvakra uvāca (अष्टावक्र उवाच). Those speaker lines are not numbered. In this text Janaka (जनक) speaks chapters 1 (the first verse), 2, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 19, and 20. Aṣṭāvakra (अष्टावक्र) speaks from 1.2, and chapters 3, 5, and 8 through 11, and 15 through 18. The English sentence and the Nepali sentence are this book's own.

How a sitting goes

One verse is one page. Read the Devanagari, then the words, then the sentence. The Nepali sentence says the same claim again.

Where to open