Gurvashtakam
गुर्वष्टकम्
What is the Gurvashtakam?
Gurvashtakam is an eight-verse Sanskrit hymn composed by Adi Shankaracharya that puts the same question to eight different kinds of worldly success: a handsome body, a devoted family, scriptural learning, honor at home and abroad, the homage of kings, spreading fame, renunciation, even detachment from the body itself. If the mind is not fixed on the Guru’s lotus feet, the hymn asks after each one, what use is any of it? Counting the closing phalashruti, the text runs to nine verses and takes about three minutes to chant.
Shankaracharya wrote a lot of stern verses about what does not matter, but Gurvashtakam might be the plainest of all of them. It does not argue philosophy or quote scripture. It simply lists, one by one, the things a person spends a lifetime accumulating: looks, a spouse, wealth, learning, reputation, the respect of kings, even the appearance of renunciation, and asks the same four-word question after each one. Then what? The refrain never varies. By the ninth verse, where the reward is finally promised, the point has already landed.
Gurvashtakam Lyrics
Roman transliteration on top, Devanagari below it. Tap Meaning under any verse for the English sense, or use A / A+ / A++ to enlarge the lyric text.
sharirama surupam tatha va kalatram
yashash charu chitram dhanam meru-tulyam
manash chen na lagnam guror anghri-padme
tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim
शरीरं सुरूपं तथा वा कलत्रं
यशश्चारु चित्रं धनं मेरुतुल्यम्
मनश्चेन्न लग्नं गुरोरङ्घ्रिपद्मे
ततः किं ततः किं ततः किं ततः किम्
Meaning
A body people call handsome, a wife who is devoted, a reputation everyone admires, wealth piled up like Mount Meru itself – the hymn opens with the four things most people spend a life chasing. Shankaracharya does not say they are bad. He says they are beside the point if the mind has not settled at the Guru’s feet.
kalatram dhanam putra-pautradi sarvam
griham bandhavah sarvam etad-dhi jatam
manash chen na lagnam guror anghri-padme
tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim
कलत्रं धनं पुत्रपौत्रादि सर्वं
गृहं बान्धवाः सर्वमेतद्धि जातम्
मनश्चेन्न लग्नं गुरोरङ्घ्रिपद्मे
ततः किं ततः किं ततः किं ततः किम्
Meaning
Wife, wealth, sons, grandsons, a house full of relatives – verse two widens the list from personal achievement to family and lineage, the things people point to as proof a life went well. Attachment to family is natural, even virtuous by ordinary standards, but the verse makes no exception for it.
shadangadi-vedo mukhe shastra-vidya
kavitvadi gadyam su-padyam karoti
manash chen na lagnam guror anghri-padme
tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim
षडङ्गादिवेदो मुखे शास्त्रविद्या
कवित्वादि गद्यं सुपद्यं करोति
मनश्चेन्न लग्नं गुरोरङ्घ्रिपद्मे
ततः किं ततः किं ततः किं ततः किम्
Meaning
Here the target shifts to learning. Someone might carry the six auxiliary sciences of the Veda on the tip of the tongue, master the scriptures cold, and turn out polished prose and verse on demand. Scholarship earns respect and sometimes fame, but Shankaracharya is not asking what a mind can recite. He is asking where it actually rests.
videsheshu manyah svadesheshu dhanyah
sadachara-vritteshu matto na chanyah
manash chen na lagnam guror anghri-padme
tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim
विदेशेषु मान्यः स्वदेशेषु धन्यः
सदाचारवृत्तेषु मत्तो न चान्यः
मनश्चेन्न लग्नं गुरोरङ्घ्रिपद्मे
ततः किं ततः किं ततः किं ततः किम्
Meaning
Honored abroad, prosperous at home, unmatched in the eyes of others for good conduct – verse four describes the person everyone in two countries agrees is doing everything right. Public esteem, the verse insists, is still just an opinion other people hold. It says nothing about where the mind is actually fixed.
kshama-mandale bhupa-bhupala-vrindaih
sada sevitam yasya padaravindam
manash chen na lagnam guror anghri-padme
tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim
क्षमामण्डले भूपभूपालवृन्दैः
सदा सेवितं यस्य पादारविन्दम्
मनश्चेन्न लग्नं गुरोरङ्घ्रिपद्मे
ततः किं ततः किं ततः किं ततः किम्
Meaning
Kings themselves might wait on this person’s feet, honoring him constantly across the whole span of the earth. It is the loftiest image in the hymn so far, the kind of scene a court poet would have known well, and it gets exactly the same four-word answer as everything before it.
yasho me gatam dikshu dana-pratapaj
jagad-vastu sarvam kare yat-prasadat
manash chen na lagnam guror anghri-padme
tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim
यशो मे गतं दिक्षु दानप्रतापाज्
जगद्वस्तु सर्वं करे यत्प्रसादात्
मनश्चेन्न लग्नं गुरोरङ्घ्रिपद्मे
ततः किं ततः किं ततः किं ततः किम्
Meaning
The speaker turns first-person here, almost boastful: my name has traveled in every direction because of my generosity and my power, and by that same grace the whole world’s wealth sits in my hand. It reads like a victory lap, which is exactly why Shankaracharya places it right before the refrain cuts it down again.
na bhoge na yoge na va vaji-rajau
na kanta-mukhe naiva vitteshu chittam
manash chen na lagnam guror anghri-padme
tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim
न भोगे न योगे न वा वाजिराजौ
न कान्तामुखे नैव वित्तेषु चित्तम्
मनश्चेन्न लग्नं गुरोरङ्घ्रिपद्मे
ततः किं ततः किं ततः किं ततः किम्
Meaning
Verse seven pivots. Instead of listing worldly attainments, it lists their opposites: no craving for sensory enjoyment, no interest in yogic practice for its own sake, no attachment to horses or royal pomp, no fixation on a beloved’s face, no hunger for riches. Even declared detachment, the verse warns, is not the same as devotion. A mind proud of what it has renounced can be just as far from the Guru’s feet as one still chasing wealth.
aranye na va svasya gehe na karye
na dehe mano vartate me tv-anarghye
manash chen na lagnam guror anghri-padme
tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim
अरण्ये न वा स्वस्य गेहे न कार्ये
न देहे मनो वर्तते मे त्वनर्घ्ये
मनश्चेन्न लग्नं गुरोरङ्घ्रिपद्मे
ततः किं ततः किं ततः किं ततः किम्
Meaning
The final verse goes further still. This mind does not dwell on the forest or the household, not on ritual duty, not even on the body it depends on – the language of someone who has walked away from everything a life normally holds onto. Shankaracharya applies the refrain to him too. Renunciation without the mind fixed on the Guru is just another form of restlessness.
Phalashruti
guror ashtakam yah pathet punya-dehi
yatir bhupatir brahmachari cha gehi
labhed vanchhitartham padam brahma-sanjnam
guror ukta-vakye mano yasya lagnam
गुरोरष्टकं यः पठेत्पुण्यदेही
यतिर्भूपतिर्ब्रह्मचारी च गेही
लभेद्वाञ्छितार्थं पदं ब्रह्मसंज्ञं
गुरोरुक्तवाक्ये मनो यस्य लग्नम्
Meaning
The concluding verse states who the hymn is for: any ascetic, any king, any student, any householder whose mind stays attached to the Guru’s own words. Whatever their station, Shankaracharya promises, they attain the goal they sought, the state described here as Brahman.
Meaning and Significance
Gurvashtakam builds its entire case through repetition and rhythm rather than argument. Each of the eight verses names something people spend real effort protecting and improving – the body, the family, the intellect, the reputation, the following, the fortune, the detachment, even the ascetic’s abandonment of the body itself – and each one collapses under the same four words: tatah kim, tatah kim, tatah kim, tatah kim. Then what, then what, then what, then what.
The order is not random. The first six verses move outward, from the individual body to family to learning to social standing to royal favor to raw accumulated wealth and fame. Verse seven turns the mirror around and interrogates detachment itself, because a person who has given up pleasure can still be quietly proud of having given it up. Verse eight pushes past even that, denying attachment to forest, home, duty and body all at once, the profile of someone who has, on paper, renounced everything. Shankaracharya’s point is that giving things up is not the same exercise as fixing the mind on the Guru. One is subtraction. The other is where the mind actually lands.
Why the Guru, and not God directly?
This is where Gurvashtakam differs from a hymn to Vishnu or Devi. Advaita holds that the Self is already identical with Brahman, but that identity is covered by an ignorance a person cannot remove alone – the image Shankaracharya uses elsewhere is that a sleeping man cannot wake himself simply by deciding to. The Guru is the one who points at what is already true rather than granting something new, which is why the hymn keeps returning to the Guru’s feet specifically rather than to a deity in the abstract. Tradition traces this role furthest back to Shiva as Dakshinamurthy, the silent teacher facing south whose wordless instruction is said to have dissolved his students’ doubts before he spoke a single syllable.
How to Chant the Gurvashtakam
- Start with the refrain, not the verse – Read manash chet na lagnam guror anghri-padme, tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim on its own first. Once that has landed, the eight verses are just different ways of setting it up.
- Keep the four-line shape – Each verse is two long lines split into four for chanting. Pause at the end of each quarter rather than rushing the whole verse into a single breath.
- Let the fourfold repetition slow you down – Tatah kim is said four times in every verse. Do not clip it into one quick phrase – the tradition treats the four repetitions as four separate strikes, not decoration.
- Notice the turn at verse seven – The first six verses name things people chase. Verses seven and eight name things people renounce. Slowing down through that turn is where the hymn’s real point comes across.
- Close with the ninth verse as a plain promise – The phalashruti names four kinds of people – ascetic, king, student, householder – who all reach the same goal if the mind stays with the Guru’s teaching. It is worth finishing on, not skipping.
What Are the Benefits of Chanting?
Gurvashtakam is chanted less as a request and more as a corrective, a short text meant to interrupt the ordinary business of measuring a life by what it has accumulated.
- Cuts through comparison: The list format works like a mirror. Reciting through body, family, learning, reputation and power in sequence makes it harder to keep believing that just one more achievement will finally be enough.
- Steadies the mind before study: Because the hymn insists that scholarship alone, named in verse three, does not equal wisdom, many chant it before sitting down to study scripture, as a reminder that information and devotion are not the same exercise.
- Corrects the trap of spiritual pride: Verses seven and eight turn the same question on detachment and renunciation. Anyone tempted to feel superior for having given something up gets the identical four-word answer as everyone else in the hymn.
- Honors the Guru-disciple bond: Guru Purnima sets aside a day specifically for this relationship, and Gurvashtakam is one of the standard texts recited on it, alongside guru puja and the offering of gratitude to one’s teacher, living or departed.
- Short enough to actually repeat: Nine verses, about three minutes – Gurvashtakam fits into a morning that has no room for a longer stotra, which is part of why it stays in daily use rather than being kept for festival days alone.
- Traditional merit: The ninth verse states its own fruit directly: whoever’s mind stays attached to the Guru’s words, whether ascetic, king, student or householder, attains the state called Brahman.
Who Composed the Gurvashtakam?
Gurvashtakam is attributed to Adi Shankaracharya (traditionally dated to the 8th century CE), the Advaita Vedanta philosopher who traveled the length of India establishing four mathas and writing commentaries on the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita alongside dozens of shorter devotional hymns. Among those shorter works, Gurvashtakam stands apart for saying almost nothing about doctrine and everything about disposition. It is a poem about where attention belongs, not an argument for a particular metaphysics.
Tradition places Shankaracharya’s own teacher as Govinda Bhagavatpada, said to have instructed him in a cave on the banks of the Narmada, whose own teacher was Gaudapada, author of the Mandukya Karika. The lineage is said to run back further still to Lord Dattatreya, honored across traditions as the Adi Guru, the first teacher of all. Shankaracharya wrote within that inheritance, and Gurvashtakam reads like a plain statement of what it had taught him: that everything else he could name, including the fame his own writings would eventually earn him, meant nothing next to a mind settled at his teacher’s feet.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Gurvashtakam?
Gurvashtakam is an eight-verse Sanskrit hymn composed by Adi Shankaracharya that puts the same question to eight different kinds of worldly success: a handsome body, a devoted family, scriptural learning, honor at home and abroad, the homage of kings, spreading fame, renunciation, even detachment from the body itself. If the mind is not fixed on the Guru’s lotus feet, the hymn asks after each one, what use is any of it? Counting the closing phalashruti, the text runs to nine verses and takes about three minutes to chant.
Who composed the Gurvashtakam?
Adi Shankaracharya, the 8th-century Advaita Vedanta philosopher, is credited with Gurvashtakam. It belongs to the same body of short devotional hymns as his Bhaja Govindam and Dakshinamurthy Ashtakam, distinct from his long commentarial works on the Upanishads and Brahma Sutras.
What does ’tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim tatah kim’ mean?
It means then what, then what, then what, then what, a fourfold rhetorical question asking what use anything is if it comes without devotion to the Guru. The same line closes all eight main verses, so it is repeated thirty-two times across the hymn.
Is the Gurvashtakam about the planet Jupiter?
No. Gurvashtakam is entirely about the human Guru, the spiritual teacher, not about Brihaspati, the planet Jupiter, which Hindu astrology also calls Guru. Hymns to the planet exist separately under names like Brihaspati Stotram or Guru Graha Stotram; this is not one of them.
How is Gurvashtakam different from the Guru Paduka Stotram?
Both honor the Guru, but they do different work. Guru Paduka Stotram, which opens Ananta samsara samudra tara, is addressed to the Guru’s sandals as a symbol of his protective grace and asks for their aid in crossing worldly existence. Gurvashtakam does not address an object of worship at all – it lists worldly attainments one after another and asks whether the mind is fixed on the Guru, without invoking the paduka image.
How many verses does the Gurvashtakam have?
Eight principal verses, each ending on the same fourfold refrain, followed by a ninth phalashruti verse that states the hymn’s fruit. Some printed editions add an invocatory verse before the eight, but the eight-plus-one structure is the version in standard circulation.
When should the Gurvashtakam be chanted?
Any time devotion to the Guru feels worth restating, though it is chanted most often in the early morning, on Thursdays, and on Guru Purnima, the full moon day set aside across Indian traditions for honoring one’s teacher.
What is the meaning of ’guror anghri-padme’?
It means at the Guru’s lotus feet. Anghri is a foot, padma is a lotus, and the compound is a standard mark of respect in Sanskrit devotional literature, comparing a revered figure’s feet to a lotus because a lotus rises clean out of muddy water, untouched by what surrounds it.
Can anyone recite the Gurvashtakam?
Yes. It carries no initiation requirement and no restricted mantra, and its ninth verse names ascetic, king, student and householder side by side as equally capable of reaching its stated goal. It is recited in Sanskrit or transliteration by anyone with a teacher in mind, or simply as a reminder of what devotion to a teacher means.
॥ इति श्रीमच्छङ्कराचार्यविरचितं गुर्वष्टकं सम्पूर्णम् ॥