Ashtavakra Gita 16.11
Ashtavakra Gita 16.11 is a verse from chapter 16 (Forget it all). The sage Ashtavakra speaks it to King Janaka. In plain English it says: "Even if Shiva, Vishnu or lotus-born Brahma were your teacher, you would not be at ease until you forget it all."
Ashtavakra, to King Janaka
हरो यद्युपदेष्टा ते हरिः कमलजोऽपि वा ।तथापि न तव स्वाथ्यं सर्वविस्मरणादृते ॥
haro yadyupadeṣṭā te hariḥ kamalajo'pi vā |tathāpi na tava svāthyaṃ sarvavismaraṇādṛte ||
Even if Shiva, Vishnu or lotus-born Brahma were your teacher, you would not be at ease until you forget it all.
What to notice
Even the three highest gods as teachers would not be enough without forgetting.
Word by word
- haraḥ
- Shiva
- yadi
- if
- upadeṣṭā
- teacher
- te
- your
- hariḥ
- Vishnu
- kamalajaḥ
- lotus-born, Brahma
- api vā
- or even
- tathā api
- even so
- na
- not
- tava
- your
- svāsthyam
- ease, resting in yourself
- sarva-vismaraṇāt ṛte
- without forgetting everything
Reading the verse
Chapter 16 opens and closes with the same refrain: you will not be at ease until you forget everything. In this last verse Ashtavakra raises the stakes. Even if Shiva, Vishnu or Brahma were your teacher, it would not be enough. The word for ease is svāsthya, literally standing in oneself, the same root as the modern Hindi word for health. What is to be forgotten is everything learned, believed and held as a position. The Advaita reading is careful here. Ashtavakra quotes scripture and relies on it, and he names the gods with respect. His point is that knowledge held as information keeps you outside of what it describes. A person who has memorised every map of a city still has to put the maps away to walk its streets. The verse is useful for anyone who reads a great deal about spiritual matters, this page included. At some point the reading has to stop and the resting has to begin.
Same thread in the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita 2.52Krishna says that when your understanding crosses the thicket of confusion, you will grow indifferent to all you have heard and will hear.Chapter 16, Forget it all: No scripture or practice brings ease until everything learned is forgotten and effort drops away.
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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.