Ashtavakra Gita 1.18
Ashtavakra Gita 1.18 is a verse from chapter 1 (The witness). The sage Ashtavakra speaks it to King Janaka. In plain English it says: "Know that what has form is unreal and what is formless is unmoving. Taught this truth, you do not come back to birth."
Ashtavakra, to King Janaka
साकारमनृतं विद्धि निराकारं तु निश्चलम् ।एतत्तत्त्वोपदेशेन न पुनर्भवसम्भवः ॥
sākāramanṛtaṃ viddhi nirākāraṃ tu niścalam |etattattvopadeśena na punarbhavasambhavaḥ ||
Know that what has form is unreal and what is formless is unmoving. Taught this truth, you do not come back to birth.
What to notice
The verse sorts all things into two kinds, with form and without, and says which one is real.
Word by word
- sākāram
- with form
- anṛtam
- unreal, untrue
- viddhi
- know
- nirākāram
- without form
- tu
- but, while
- niścalam
- unmoving, steady
- etat
- this
- tattva-upadeśena
- by teaching on what is real
- na punaḥ
- not again
- bhava-sambhavaḥ
- coming into existence, rebirth
Reading the verse
Everything with a shape changes. The body grows and ages, mountains wear down, even stars burn out. Ashtavakra says what has form is anṛta, untrue, in the sense that it does not stay what it is. What has no form is niścala, unmoving. The Advaita reading uses a test from the Upanishads: the real is what does not change across past, present and future. By that test, forms fail and awareness passes, since it is present in waking, dream and deep sleep alike. The second line makes a large promise. Through this tattvopadeśa, teaching on what is real, there is no more coming into birth. The commentators explain that rebirth in this tradition follows identification with form. If you take yourself to be the formless, there is nothing to carry from one form to the next. A reader does not need to settle questions about rebirth to use the verse. Its first line is a lens for any loss. What has form was always going to change. What sees the change was never in danger.
Same thread in the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita 2.16Krishna says the unreal has no being and the real never ceases to be.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.