Ashtavakra Gita 18.35
Ashtavakra Gita 18.35 is a verse from chapter 18 (Peace in a hundred verses). The sage Ashtavakra speaks it to King Janaka. In plain English it says: "People devoted to practice do not know the Self: pure, awake, dear, whole, beyond the spread of the world, untouched by sorrow."
Ashtavakra, to King Janaka
शुद्धं बुद्धं प्रियं पूर्णं निष्प्रपञ्चं निरामयम् ।आत्मानं तं न जानन्ति तत्राभ्यासपरा जनाः ॥
śuddhaṃ buddhaṃ priyaṃ pūrṇaṃ niṣprapañcaṃ nirāmayam |ātmānaṃ taṃ na jānanti tatrābhyāsaparā janāḥ ||
People devoted to practice do not know the Self: pure, awake, dear, whole, beyond the spread of the world, untouched by sorrow.
What to notice
Six qualities of the Self are listed, and then the surprise: those devoted to practice do not know it.
Word by word
- śuddham
- pure
- buddham
- awake
- priyam
- dear, beloved
- pūrṇam
- whole
- niṣprapañcam
- beyond the spread of the world
- nirāmayam
- untouched by sorrow or sickness
- ātmānam
- the Self
- tam
- that
- na jānanti
- do not know
- tatra
- there
- abhyāsa-parāḥ
- devoted to practice
- janāḥ
- people
Reading the verse
The first line is a portrait of the Self in six words. Pure, awake, dear, whole, beyond the spread of the world, free of sickness. Priya, dear, is a striking choice. The Upanishads say that everything is loved for the sake of the Self, and here the Self itself is called the beloved. Then the second line turns: people devoted to practice do not know it. This is the same point made in 1.15 and repeated through chapter 18. If you practise in order to reach the Self, you have placed it somewhere else, at the end of the practice. Advaita teachers read the verse as aimed at a particular trap, where years of discipline become a way of postponing recognition. They do not read it as a ban on practice for everyone. The Bhagavad Gita takes a different emphasis and tells Arjuna that the restless mind is steadied by practice and dispassion. Many readers find both true at different stages. People searching for 'Ashtavakra samhita 18.35' are looking for this verse.
Where the Bhagavad Gita differs
Bhagavad Gita 6.35Krishna tells Arjuna the restless mind is steadied by practice and dispassion, the step Ashtavakra treats as already behind his student.Chapter 18, Peace in a hundred verses: The longest chapter, a third of the text, contrasting the confused who strive with the steady who are already at rest.
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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.