Stotra · स्तोत्रStotra

Nirvana Shatakam — verse 1

Not the mind, not the senses, not the elements — I am consciousness and bliss; I am Shiva.

Nirvana Shatakam (Atma Shatakam), attributed to Adi Shankara verse 1edition

Sanskrit · संस्कृत

मनोबुद्ध्यहङ्कारचित्तानि नाहं न च श्रोत्रजिह्वे न च घ्राणनेत्रे । न च व्योम भूमिर्न तेजो न वायुः चिदानन्दरूपः शिवोऽहम् शिवोऽहम् ॥

manobuddhyahaṅkāracittāni nāhaṃ na ca śrotrajihve na ca ghrāṇanetre na ca vyoma bhūmir na tejo na vāyuḥ cidānandarūpaḥ śivo'ham śivo'ham

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Meaning

I am not the mind, the intellect, the ego or the memory; nor the ear and the tongue, nor the nose and the eyes. Nor am I space, earth, fire or air. I am of the nature of consciousness and bliss: I am Shiva, I am Shiva.

This rendering is by a DharmSetu editor, not a quotation from a published translation. Compare with the public-domain translation.

A Hindi meaning has not been written for this mantra yet. Hindi is authored by a named editor rather than machine-translated, so it arrives more slowly.

How to recite

Two long lines, each best taken in two breaths at the daṇḍa. The verse turns on the repeated na — do not let the negations blur together. The conjunct ṅk in ahaṅkāra is the ng of "sing" followed by k. Śivo'ham is śivaḥ + aham, with the apostrophe marking an elided a; read it as one word.

Repetitions: 1 · 3
Time: brahma muhurta

Pronunciation key — sounds commonly got wrong

ट ठ ड ढ ण · ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ: Retroflex — the tongue curls back and touches the roof of the mouth. Distinct from the dental त थ द ध न, where the tongue touches the teeth.
श ष स · ś ṣ s: Three different sounds: ś as in “shy”, ṣ retroflex and further back, s plain. Collapsing them changes words.
ः · ḥ (visarga): A soft outward breath echoing the preceding vowel — not a hard “ha”.
ं · ṃ (anusvara): Nasalises the vowel; the closing sound follows the consonant that comes next.
Long vs short vowels — a / ā, i / ī, u / ū: Vowel length is meaningful in Sanskrit. Hold the macron vowels roughly twice as long.
Aspirated consonants — kh, gh, ch, th, dh, ph, bh: A distinct puff of breath. ph is an aspirated p, never an English “f”.

Word by word

मनःmanaḥ: mindMW1899-CDSL p.783
बुद्धिःbuddhiḥ: intellectMW1899-CDSL p.733
अहङ्कारःahaṅkāraḥ: the sense of 'I', ego
चित्तानिcittāni: the contents of the mind, memory(nom. pl. n.)MW1899-CDSL p.395
न अहम्na aham: I am not
श्रोत्रजिह्वेśrotrajihve: ear and tongue(nom. dual)
घ्राणनेत्रेghrāṇanetre: nose and eyes(nom. dual)
व्योमvyoma: space, etherMW1899-CDSL p.1029

Context

Six verses, each built the same way: a long list of what the self is not, and then two words that say what it is. The Sanskrit method here has a name — neti neti, "not this, not this" — and the Shatakam is its best-known poetic form. The closing śivo'ham carries a deliberate double sense. Shiva is the god, and śiva is an adjective meaning auspicious or benign. The verse can be read either way and the tradition reads it both. On authorship: the work is attributed to Adi Shankara (8th century), but the attribution comes from the later Advaita tradition rather than from anything in the text itself. The corpus of works ascribed to Shankara is large and much of it is disputed. The attribution is recorded here as an attribution, which is what it is. Also circulated under the title Atma Shatakam.

Shadanga — the six limbs

The traditional analytic frame for a mantra. Blank limbs are simply not recorded for this text.

devata: Shiva (as the self)

Recited at / traditionally recited for

Knowledge (jnana)Dhyana (meditation)Maha Shivratri

Classified as Stotra — Devotional hymn literature — praise poetry rather than a Vedic formula. Basis for this classification.

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