The Story of Gadhi
Gadhi, a virtuous Brahmin ascetic of Kosala who undergoes an illusory life as an outcaste and a king; Vishnu, who grants him the vision and later explains it; a Chandala household, a Kira kingdom, and a wandering guest named Durvasa who unknowingly confirms the illusion as fact.
Vasishtha tells Rama of Gadhi, a learned, detached Brahmin of Kosala who goes to the forest and immerses himself in a lake to perform penance. After eight months Vishnu appears and offers him a boon; Gadhi asks to see Vishnu's Maya. Vishnu tells him he will see it and vanishes.
Later, while bathing, Gadhi is caught in a whirlpool and loses his bearings: within it he sees himself dying among grieving relatives and being cremated. Then he finds his self reborn in the womb of an outcaste woman, growing up as a hunter named Katanjaya/Katanja, marrying, growing old, losing his wife, and wandering until an elephant selects him as king of the city of Kira, where he rules for eight years as King Gavala. When his outcaste origin is discovered, the horrified citizens burn themselves, and he throws himself into the fire too - at which point Gadhi wakes in the lake, shaken.
Doubting whether this was real, he travels to verify it: a guest, Durvasa, independently recounts hearing the same story in Kira. Gadhi then visits the actual outcaste village and the city of Kira, finding both places and their inhabitants matching what he saw, in ruin years later. Bewildered, he undertakes penance again; Vishnu returns and explains that this was all Maya - mind creating and inhabiting entire lives, indistinguishable from reality, with no real death or separate world outside the mind.
Gadhi performs ten more years of penance and attains self-knowledge, living afterward free and at peace.
मायामिमां त्वद्रचितां भगवन्पारमात्मिकीम् द्रष्टुमिच्छामि संसारनाम्न्यामन्ध्यैककारिणीम् ॥ १३ ॥
Lord, I want to see this illusion you have made — the power of the Supreme Self itself, the one they call the world, which alone makes beings blind.
हे भगवान, मैं आपकी बनाई हुई इस माया को देखना चाहता हूँ — जो परमात्मा की ही शक्ति है, जिसे संसार कहा जाता है, और जो अकेली ही जीवों को अंधा बना देती है।
श्रीभगवानुवाच । गाधे कच्चित्त्वया दृष्टा माया मम गरीयसी । दृष्टं त्वया जगज्जालचेष्टितं दैष्टिकात्मकम् ॥ ४० ॥
The Lord said: Gadhi, have you seen my great illusion? Have you seen how the net of the world works, and that its nature is destiny?
भगवान ने कहा, गाधि, क्या तुमने मेरी यह महान माया देखी? क्या तुमने देखा कि संसार का यह जाल कैसे चलता है, और यह कि इसका स्वभाव भाग्य से बंधा है?
निरस्ताशेषसंकल्पस्तपस्तत्र चकार ह । दशवर्षाणि तेनासावात्मज्ञानमवाप ह ॥ ४६ ॥
With all his thoughts and wishes entirely cast off, he practiced austerity there. For ten years he did this, and by it he attained knowledge of the self.
अपने सारे संकल्पों को पूरी तरह त्यागकर, उसने वहां तप किया। दस वर्षों तक ऐसा करके, उसने आत्मज्ञान पाया।
Read it in full
The story runs through chapters 44–49 of Book 5. Each chapter has the Sanskrit in Devanagari and IAST beside a plain English and Hindi translation of every verse. The number under each chapter is its verse count.