Chapter 2 marks a dramatic shift: Janaka responds, and his words reveal that Aṣṭāvakra’s teaching has already borne fruit. The king declares that from the moment he abandoned the world through his teacher’s instruction, he has seen that there is neither gain nor loss, neither joy nor sorrow. This is not philosophical assent but lived realization — the paired opposites that structured his experience have collapsed. Janaka now speaks as a jñānin, and his eight verses in this chapter are the first testament of realized understanding in the text.