The verse and its meaning · Ashtavakra Gita · Ashtavakra Gita — Janaka Wakes

Clay, Wave, Gold Bracelet

Ashtavakra Gita 2.9

अहो विकल्पितं विश्वमज्ञानान्मयि भासते। रूप्यं शुक्तौ फणी रज्जौ वारि सूर्यकरे यथा ॥ मत्तो विनिर्गतं विश्वं मय्येव लयमेष्यति। मृदि कुंभो जले वीचिः कनके कटकं यथा

Meaning · English

How wondrous: the world is only imagined, and through not-knowing it shines in me, as silver in a pearl-shell, a snake in a rope, water in the sun's rays. From me the world has come forth, and into me alone it will dissolve, as a pot into clay, a wave into water, a bracelet into gold.

Janaka says the world is vikalpita, which comes from words for fashioning something in many ways. It is built up in the mind, as a story is built. The cause he names is ajnana, not-knowing, which is simply the lack of seeing what is there. The first three pictures show how this goes. Silver seen in a pearl-shell, a snake seen in a rope, and water seen in the sun's glare are all real sightings. Each one is a wrong reading of something else, and it holds only until the thing is seen as it is. Janaka says the world shines in him in that way, and that he is the ground it is read upon. The second half goes further. The world comes out of him and returns to him, and the word for that return is laya, melting or dissolving. His three pictures are a pot, a wave and a bracelet. Each has a name and a shape, and each is only clay, water or gold underneath. Break the pot and the clay is still there. Janaka teaches that the world is no second thing standing beside the self. It is the self wearing names and shapes. He says this to Ashtavakra because he has just seen it for himself, and the wonder spills out. The verse asks the listener to look past the shape to the stuff it is made of.

A child pats damp sand into a castle, with towers and a gate. The tide comes in and the castle is gone, but no sand has been lost. The castle was only a shape the sand took for a while, as the world is a shape taken by the one self.

1. Today, pick up one made thing at home, such as a steel tumbler, a clay lamp or a gold ring. 2. Hold it for a minute. Say its name once, then say only what it is made of. 3. Next, look at one thing that troubles you and ask what it is made of underneath its name, such as an insult, a bill or a delay. 4. Keep this to a few minutes, and stop when you like.

A man sits at a jeweller's counter with his late mother's gold bangles in a cloth. They are to be melted down for his daughter's necklace. He feels he is destroying something. The jeweller weighs the bangles, melts them and weighs the gold again, and it is the same gold in a new shape. The verse would change that moment in steps. First, it separates the name from the stuff. Bangle and necklace are names and shapes, and the gold is what was handed over and what comes back. Second, it lets the loss be smaller than it feels, because only the shape is going. Third, it says the same of the whole world, which Janaka teaches comes out of the self and returns to it, like every shape of clay or water. Ordinary experience confirms the first step, since the weight on the scale does not change when the form does. The verse does not take away his sorrow for his mother, and it does not make the bangles matter less to him. It also gives no advice about money, health or any practical decision.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: My Own Form Is Light · Ashtavakra Gita 2.8
• Next: The Self That Remains · Ashtavakra Gita 2.11
• All of Ashtavakra Gita · Ask Krishna about it

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