The King Who Called Himself Free

Janaka spoke first. Lady, he said, where did you take up this way of life, and where will you go? Whose are you, and where are you from? A person's true nature cannot be known from learning or age or birth, so when the good meet, these questions should be answered.

Know, he went on, that I am free of the parasol and all the marks of kingship. I will honour you, for I think you worthy of honour. Hear from whom I received my knowledge. I am the most valued pupil of the old and great mendicant Pañcaśikha, of the line of Parāśara. He stayed happily with me for the four months of the rains and taught me the threefold way to freedom: through Sāṃkhya, the knowledge that tells the Self from all that is not the Self, through yoga, the discipline of the mind, and through the rule of kings, and he did not move me from my kingdom.

So I live free of passion, standing in the highest state. Detachment is the highest means to freedom, and detachment is born of knowledge. As a seed parched in a pan, even if it is sown, does not sprout, so my knowledge has been made seedless by that teacher, and it does not sprout among the objects of the senses. If one man smeared my right arm with sandal paste and another cut my left arm with an axe, they would be the same to me. I am happy, I have reached my goal, a clod and a stone and gold are the same to me, and I stand in my kingdom free of attachment, set above others who carry the triple staff.

If there is freedom in the triple staff by some knowledge, why not under the parasol? Each holds to the things he needs. Ochre robes, a shaven head, the triple staff, the water pot: these marks, I think, are not for freedom. There is no freedom in having nothing and no bondage in having something; in either case a man is freed by knowledge alone. With the sword of renunciation, sharpened on the whetstone of freedom, I have cut the noose of kingship and wealth, which is bound with the cords of affection.