Ashtavakra Gita 1.16
Ashtavakra Gita 1.16 is a verse from chapter 1 (The witness). The sage Ashtavakra speaks it to King Janaka. In plain English it says: "In truth this world is pervaded by you and strung on you. Your nature is pure awareness. Do not fall into smallness of mind."
Ashtavakra, to King Janaka
त्वया व्याप्तमिदं विश्वं त्वयि प्रोतं यथार्थतः ।शुद्धबुद्धस्वरूपस्त्वं मा गमः क्षुद्रचित्तताम् ॥
tvayā vyāptamidaṃ viśvaṃ tvayi protaṃ yathārthataḥ |śuddhabuddhasvarūpastvaṃ mā gamaḥ kṣudracittatām ||
In truth this world is pervaded by you and strung on you. Your nature is pure awareness. Do not fall into smallness of mind.
What to notice
The world is said to be strung on you, the word used for beads on a thread.
Word by word
- tvayā
- by you
- vyāptam
- pervaded
- idam viśvam
- this world
- tvayi
- in you
- protam
- strung, woven
- yathārthataḥ
- in truth
- śuddha-buddha-svarūpaḥ
- whose nature is pure awareness
- tvam
- you
- mā gamaḥ
- do not go into
- kṣudra-cittatām
- smallness of mind
Reading the verse
Prota means strung, as beads are strung on a thread, or woven, as threads run through cloth. Ashtavakra tells Janaka that the world is pervaded by him and strung on him. The thread does not show among the beads, yet nothing holds together without it. Then the verse turns personal: do not fall into kṣudra-cittatā, smallness of mind. The tradition reads this as the practical consequence of the teaching. If the whole world is strung on awareness, then pettiness, grudges and anxious self-concern are a strange way for awareness to behave. It is like a king worrying about a coin. The verse prescribes no effort to become large-minded. It reminds Janaka that he already is, and asks him not to forget it. The same image of beads on a thread appears in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna says all this is strung on him like pearls on a string. The two texts use one picture for one claim, from two different speakers.
Same thread in the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita 7.7Krishna says all this is strung on him like pearls on a thread.Chapter 1, The witness: Janaka asks how to know, how to be free and how to let go, and Ashtavakra answers that he is already the free witness of everything.
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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.