Ashtavakra Gita 2.25
Ashtavakra Gita 2.25 is a verse from chapter 2 (Janaka's wonder). King Janaka speaks it to his teacher, the sage Ashtavakra. In plain English it says: "How wonderful. In me, the endless ocean, the waves of living beings rise, strike each other, play and sink back, by their own nature."
King Janaka, to Ashtavakra
मय्यनन्तमहाम्भोधावाश्चर्यं जीववीचयः ।उद्यन्ति घ्नन्ति खेलन्ति प्रविशन्ति स्वभावतः ॥
mayyanantamahāmbhodhāvāścaryaṃ jīvavīcayaḥ |udyanti ghnanti khelanti praviśanti svabhāvataḥ ||
How wonderful. In me, the endless ocean, the waves of living beings rise, strike each other, play and sink back, by their own nature.
What to notice
Living beings are waves that rise, collide, play and sink, by their own nature.
Word by word
- mayi
- in me
- ananta-mahā-ambhodhau
- in the endless great ocean
- āścaryam
- wonder
- jīva-vīcayaḥ
- waves of living beings
- udyanti
- rise
- ghnanti
- strike each other
- khelanti
- play
- praviśanti
- enter back, sink
- svabhāvataḥ
- by their own nature
Reading the verse
Chapter 2 ends with the ocean. Janaka sees himself as an endless ocean and living beings as its waves. The four verbs are worth reading slowly: they rise, they strike each other, they play, they sink back. That is a fair summary of any life, and of all lives together. The word ghnanti, they strike or even kill, is not softened. Waves crash into each other. People hurt each other. The verse does not pretend otherwise. What it adds is svabhāvataḥ, by their own nature. The waves do this because that is what waves do, and the ocean is not damaged by any of it. The Advaita reading is that this is how the knower looks at the world, with wonder, āścarya, and without being thrown about. The knower still feels for those who suffer, and sees their suffering from a depth it does not reach. The ocean returns in chapters 6, 7 and 15, each time with a slightly different lesson.
Same thread in the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita 2.70Krishna compares the one at peace to the ocean, which stays still while rivers keep pouring in.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.