(Ashtaavakrawas a great sage and a
celebrated character in the Indian epics and puranas. His work, ‘Ashtaavakra
Gita’ contains the conversations between Ashtaavakra and King Janaka. It is
considered to contain the essence of Advaita Vedanta.The
work was appreciated and quoted by great saints and scholars.
Kahola(Kahoda
in some texts) a disciple of Sage UdhalakaAruni, marriedUdhalaka’s daughter
Sujatha and set up his own ashram, after completing his studies. He had many disciples and life went on
smoothly. When Sujatha became pregnant, their joy was complete.
Oneday,
Kaholawas practising some of the verses he would teach the following day. HisSujathawas
also sitting there. Suddenly, the foetus from inside Sujatha’s womb spoke,
“Father! Please stop practising. You have made eight errors. Please go back to your
Guru and learn your lessons again.” Kahola was shocked and infuriated. Without
thinking, he cursed the baby inside his wife’s womb to be born with eight bends
(eight deformities). He regretted the curse immediately, but it was too late.
As time
went by, the rains failed. Due to the dearth of food and water, the disciples
left Kahola’sashram.Sujatha suggested that he should go to King Janaka’s court
in Mithila,participate in the intellectual debate conducted there and bring back rich rewards. Kahola left for
Mithila.
In
Janaka’s court, there was a scholar named Vandin, who had made it a habit to defeat
those who came to debate with him and later, immerse them in the sea. Kahola,
who went with the hope of winning rich gifts, unfortunately was defeated by
Vandinand met with the same fate.
In due
course, a son was born to Sujatha with eight bends in his body and people began
to call him ‘Ashtavakra’-- the one with eight bends. But Uddhalaka named his
grandson, Ashtaavakra(Ashta+Avakra) i.e., not crooked, but
straightforward in his thought process. True to his grandfather’s prediction,
Ashtaavakrawas growing into an incredibly bright boy.
In the
meantime, the news of what happened to Kahola in Janaka’s court reached
Udhalaka’sears.He did not want his grandson’s education to be affected by the
shadow of a father who failed. So, he instructed Sujatha to hide this
information from her son. In the meantime, Udhalaka’s wife gave birth to
Svethaketu. Both children grew up together.
Ashtaavakrawas
under the impression thatUdhalaka was his father and Svetaketu, his brother.
One day, as Ashtaavakrasat on Udhalaka’s lap, Svetaketu became jealous and
asked him to get down from his father’s lap and go and sit on his own father’s
lap. It was then that Ashtaavakra knew about his real father and what had
happened to him.
He was
almost ten years old by then. He decided to go to Mithila immediately and
defeat the scholar who had defeated his father. Svetaketu, who was apologetic
for his behaviour also went with him.
When
these two boys tried to enter the court, the gatekeepers stopped them saying
only grown up scholars could go in. Ashtaavakra replied that a grown up person
need not be old; he should be wise. The impressed gatekeepers let them in.
Janaka’s
court was filled with scholars. They burst out laughing when they saw
Ashtaavakra. He also laughted back -- only, louder. When King Janaka wanted to
know why he was laughing, he replied, “What kind of intellectual discussion can
happenhere, when your scholars can judge only the outward appearance of a
person? I am really amused.”
The king
apologised for their behaviour and wanted to know the purpose of their visit.
Ashtaavakra
introduced himself as the son of Kahola and requested to be permitted to
conduct a debate with Vandin. The king agreed. The debate started.
For some time, both the
participants seemed equally poised. After debating on many serious topics,
Vandin and Ashtaavakraalternately composed
verses on the numbers one to twelve. Vandin could only compose the first half
of a verse on the number thirteen. Ashtaavakracompleted
the verse and thus defeated Vandin.
King Janakawas so
impressed withAshtaavakrathat he became his
disciple.
Vandin revealed that he
was the son of Varuṇa and hadsubmerged Kahola along with several other brahmiṇs
in water to help his father carry out the twelve-year long, ‘VarunaYajna’. He
brought Kahola back and handed him over to Ashtaavakra with due respect.
Ashtaavakra,
Svetaketu and Kahola left the court and walked towards their guru’s ashram.Kahola
was grateful to his son for emancipating him and withdrew his curse. On their way back home, Kahola asked Aṣṭaavakra to bathe in the river
Samangaa. Aṣṭaavakra did so. When he got up, his deformities were cured and he
turned into a handsome boy. Sujata was very happy to see her husband and her
no-longer handicapped son. Aṣṭaavakra stayed a lifelong Brahmachari and became a
great rishi.
B. Ramadevi
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_(epic)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita
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