Ashtavakra Gita 6.2
Ashtavakra Gita 6.2 is a verse from chapter 6 (Space, ocean, shell). King Janaka speaks it to his teacher, the sage Ashtavakra. In plain English it says: "I am like the great ocean. The world of many things is like a wave. Knowing this, there is nothing to give up, nothing to take and nothing to dissolve."
King Janaka, to Ashtavakra
महोदधिरिवाहं स प्रपञ्चो वीचिसन्निभः ।इति ज्ञानं तथैतस्य न त्यागो न ग्रहो लयः ॥
mahodadhirivāhaṃ sa prapañco vīcisannibhaḥ |iti jñānaṃ tathaitasya na tyāgo na graho layaḥ ||
I am like the great ocean. The world of many things is like a wave. Knowing this, there is nothing to give up, nothing to take and nothing to dissolve.
What to notice
The same refrain closes all four verses of chapter 6: nothing to give up, take or dissolve.
Word by word
- mahā-udadhiḥ iva
- like the great ocean
- aham
- I
- saḥ
- that
- prapañcaḥ
- the spread-out world of many things
- vīci-sannibhaḥ
- like a wave
- iti
- thus
- jñānam
- knowledge
- tathā
- so
- etasya
- of this
- na tyāgaḥ
- no giving up
- na grahaḥ
- no taking
- layaḥ
- dissolving
Reading the verse
In chapter 5 Ashtavakra told Janaka four times to go to rest, layaṃ vraja, to dissolve. In chapter 6 the reply, in four verses, is that there is nothing to dissolve. This verse gives the ocean image. I am like the great ocean, and the world of many things is like a wave. Knowing this, there is no giving up, no taking and no dissolving. The refrain is the point. If the wave is water, you do not need to throw it away to reach the water, and you do not need to grab it either. Even dissolving it is unnecessary, since it is already nothing other than ocean. The Advaita teachers see chapter 6 as a refinement. Renunciation and absorption are useful ideas on the way, but they still assume a world standing apart from the Self. Once that assumption is gone, these efforts have no object. For a reader, the verse is an invitation to stop managing. Some days the waves are high. You are still the ocean.
Chapter 6, Space, ocean, shell: Janaka answers that there is nothing to give up, take or dissolve, because the world was never apart from him.
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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.