Ashtavakra Gita 2.10
Ashtavakra Gita 2.10 is a verse from chapter 2 (Janaka's wonder). King Janaka speaks it to his teacher, the sage Ashtavakra. In plain English it says: "The world came out of me and will dissolve back into me, as a pot into clay, a wave into water, a bracelet into gold."
King Janaka, to Ashtavakra
मत्तो विनिर्गतं विश्वं मय्येव लयमेष्यति ।मृदि कुम्भो जले वीचिः कनके कटकं यथा ॥
matto vinirgataṃ viśvaṃ mayyeva layameṣyati |mṛdi kumbho jale vīciḥ kanake kaṭakaṃ yathā ||
The world came out of me and will dissolve back into me, as a pot into clay, a wave into water, a bracelet into gold.
What to notice
Three pairs, and each ornament or form dissolves back into what it was made of.
Word by word
- mattaḥ
- from me
- vinirgatam
- come out
- viśvam
- the world
- mayi eva
- into me alone
- layam eṣyati
- will dissolve
- mṛdi
- into clay
- kumbhaḥ
- a pot
- jale
- into water
- vīciḥ
- a wave
- kanake
- into gold
- kaṭakam
- a bracelet
Reading the verse
Janaka gives three examples, each a form and its material. A pot is clay given a shape. A wave is water in motion. A bracelet, kaṭaka, is gold bent into a ring. In each case the form has a name and a use, and in each case it returns to its material without any loss to the material. The clay was never less clay for being a pot. Janaka says the world comes out of him and returns into him in the same way. Advaita uses these examples, which go back to the Chandogya Upanishad's teaching that all clay things are only clay, to explain how one reality can appear as many things. The name and shape are real for use. You drink from the pot and wear the bracelet. But what they are made of is what they are. Applied to the self, the verse removes a fear. If you are the gold, the melting of a bracelet is a change of shape and not an ending.
Same thread in the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita 9.7Krishna says all beings return into his nature at the end of an age and come forth again at its start.Chapter 2, Janaka's wonder: Janaka finds himself as awareness and bows to it in astonishment, testing the new view against the world, the body and the crowd.
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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.