Many great classical texts are rich in Vedanta. One such is the Ashtavakra Samhita, a conversation between Janaka , the king-pupil and Ashtavakra, the guru-seer whose name indicates that his body had eight contortions. The subject of discussion was what constitutes bondage and liberation; the dialogue is a direct and simple articulation of the nature and joy of Self-realisation.
"Non-attachment for sense-objects is liberation: love for sense-objects is bondage...". Sage Ashtavakra says that the Self alone exists and all else, within the mind-senses vortex, is false and unreal. He draws his disciple's attention to his own restlessness, despite being a model king. This, Ashtavakra defines as the eternal yearning of the mind for its true nature, beyond all objects and desire. The seeker has only preoccupied himself in this world till now, to quench this restlessness, not fully comprehending himself what he seeks.
The seeker remains unfulfilled as a result of this preoccupation, because one can actually only feel satiated in the realisation of one's true nature. Ashtavakra continues with his exposition of the illusory nature of the world for enjoyment and learning, for "bondage consists only of desire, and the destruction of desire is liberation.." He asks Janaka to wake up to the transitory nature of all things, to cultivate dispassion, to understand that at the root of this cycle of suffering is attachment born of desire.
The Ashtavakra Samhita focuses on the nature of atmanu-bhuti or Self-realisation, predicated on understanding the bondage-liberation paradigm.
In a way, one can see in this exploration the germ of what was later formalised as the Ajata-vadaor Advaita school of thought by Gaudapada and Shankara.
Ashtavakra goes on to annihilate the false sense of identification of the Self with the mind, saying that "it is bondage when the mind desires or grieves at anything, rejects or accepts anything, feels happy or angry at anything..". In a movingly simple verse, he sums up a free and fearless soul as one who has renounced desire, for "the renunciation of desire alone is renunciation of the world".
As Bhartrihari in his Vairagya-Shatakam — A Hundred Verses on Renunciation — puts it, renunciation alone removes all fear, for "...in enjoyment there is the fear of disease, in social position fear of a fall, in honour the fear of humiliation, in beauty the fear of old age... and while old age comes on, desire alone grows younger every day".
Ashtavakra then describes the state of bliss of the Self, in which all notions of plurality fall away, in which even intellectual, aesthetic or ethical pursuits seem secondary, where "there is no heaven or hell or liberation... nothing but the Self in this expanded cosmic consciousness".
The fire of knowledge ignited by the guru burns away desires of the disciple, and the last two chapters allude to the experiential realisation of the disciple himself. Janaka describes his own state to his guru Ashtavakra in terms and language that are reminiscent of the " neti, neti ..." vocabulary of the Upanishads: "...where are the elements, where is the body, where is the mind, where is the knower, the means, the object of knowledge... where is anything, where is the world, where is the aspirant." The Self alone exists.