Ashtavakra Gita 1.7
Ashtavakra Gita 1.7 is a verse from chapter 1 (The witness). The sage Ashtavakra speaks it to King Janaka. In plain English it says: "You are the one seer of all, and you have always been free. Your only bondage is this: you see the seer as someone else."
Ashtavakra, to King Janaka
एको द्रष्टासि सर्वस्य मुक्तप्रायोऽसि सर्वदा ।अयमेव हि ते बन्धो द्रष्टारं पश्यसीतरम् ॥
eko draṣṭāsi sarvasya muktaprāyo'si sarvadā |ayameva hi te bandho draṣṭāraṃ paśyasītaram ||
You are the one seer of all, and you have always been free. Your only bondage is this: you see the seer as someone else.
What to notice
Bondage is defined as one small error of seeing.
Word by word
- ekaḥ
- one, alone
- draṣṭā
- seer
- asi
- you are
- sarvasya
- of everything
- mukta-prāyaḥ
- free in effect, as good as free
- sarvadā
- always
- ayam eva
- this alone
- hi
- indeed
- te
- your
- bandhaḥ
- bondage
- draṣṭāram
- the seer
- paśyasi
- you see
- itaram
- as someone else
Reading the verse
Ashtavakra gives a definition of bondage that fits in half a line: you see the seer as someone other than yourself. In daily life we treat awareness as a property of a small person located behind the eyes. That person then seems to be one object among others, limited and exposed. The verse says this picture is the whole problem. There is one seer of everything, and it is what you are. The word mukta-prāya is unusual. Some commentators read it as free already, since prāya can mean in effect. Others read it as nearly free, meaning that the only thing between Janaka and freedom is this misreading. Both readings agree on the practical point. Nothing has to be built. One mistake has to be dropped. The Advaita teachers compare it to a man looking everywhere for a necklace he is wearing. When a friend points to his neck, he gains nothing new, and he stops searching. The verse invites the same kind of looking.
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.