A story · Tattva · Tattva — Stories

Ashtavakra at Janaka's Court

Mahabharata, Vana Parva 132

The story · English

The sage Lomasa was showing Yudhishthira the holy places, and he stopped at the hermitage of Swetaketu, son of Uddalaka. Swetaketu and his nephew Ashtavakra, son of Kahoda, were the two best scholars of their age. Together they once went to King Janaka's sacrifice and defeated a man named Vandin in debate. Yudhishthira asked how Ashtavakra came to be born with a crooked body, and Lomasa told him. Uddalaka had a devoted student, Kahoda, and gave him his daughter Sujata in marriage. While she was carrying their child, Kahoda sat reciting the Vedas through the night. From the womb the child spoke: father, your recitation is not correct. I know these texts, and what you say is wrong.

Kahoda was humiliated in front of his own students. In anger he cursed the child in the womb: because you speak like this before you are even born, you will be crooked in eight parts of your body. And so the boy was born, bent in eight places, and the name Ashtavakra stayed with him. Now Sujata was close to her time, and the household had no money. Privately she asked her husband what they would do once the baby came. Kahoda went to King Janaka to seek wealth. There he met Vandin, a master of argument, and lost the debate. The penalty was that he be drowned in water. When Uddalaka heard, he told his daughter to keep it secret from the child.

So Ashtavakra grew up knowing nothing. He took Uddalaka for his father and Swetaketu for his brother. When he was twelve, he was sitting on Uddalaka's lap one day when Swetaketu took him by the hand and pulled him away. The boy began to cry. Swetaketu said, this is not your father's lap. The words sank deep. Ashtavakra went to his mother and asked, where is my father? Sujata, afraid of a curse, told him everything. That night he spoke to Swetaketu. Let us go to King Janaka's sacrifice, he said. There we can hear the Brahmanas debate, eat well, and add to what we know. The two of them set out together.

At the gate they were turned away. Ashtavakra found the king and spoke to him. When no Brahmana is on the road, he said, the road belongs to the blind, the deaf, women, the burdened and the king, in that order. When a Brahmana comes, it belongs to him alone. Janaka answered, go in by whatever way you like. No fire is to be slighted, however small. But the gatekeeper still barred the way. He said they followed Vandin's orders, and only old, learned Brahmanas were let in. Ashtavakra replied, then we qualify. We have kept our vows and served our teachers. Even a small fire burns when it is touched.

The gatekeeper tried again. Recite, if you can, the verse of one letter that shows the Supreme Being. Do not boast, he said, for learned men are rare. Ashtavakra answered that growth cannot be read from a body's size, as a tree's age cannot be read from its knots. A tree is full grown when it bears fruit. Gray hair does not make a man old. We call him great who knows the Vedas. The gatekeeper said, you are only in your tenth year, but I will find a way. Ashtavakra then spoke to the king. He had heard that Vandin drowned those he defeated, and he had come to speak of the unity of the Supreme Being. Where is Vandin?

Janaka warned him. Many proud scholars had faded before Vandin like stars before the sun. Ashtavakra said Vandin had never met a man like him, and only for that reason roared like a lion. Today he would lie like a cart with broken wheels. The king tested him with riddles. What has twelve parts, twenty-four joints and three hundred and sixty spokes? Ashtavakra named the turning wheel of the year. Then Janaka asked, what never closes its eyes in sleep, what does not move when born, what has no heart, what swells with its own speed? A fish, said Ashtavakra, an egg, a stone, and a river. The king said, I do not think you are a boy. There is Vandin.

Ashtavakra looked over the assembly and said he was searching for Vandin like a man hunting a swan on a wide lake. Do not wake a sleeping tiger, he said. Then he told Vandin to answer his questions, and he would answer Vandin's. They began a contest of numbers, each giving things that come in a given count. Vandin said one: one fire, one sun, one Indra, one Yama. Ashtavakra answered two: Indra and Agni, the sages Narada and Parvata, the Aswins, the two wheels of a cart, husband and wife. Vandin gave three, Ashtavakra four, and so they went on. Five were the fires, six the seasons, seven the strings of the Vina, eight the Vasus.

The numbers climbed on. Nine, said Vandin, are the letters in the foot of the metre Vrihati. Ten, said Ashtavakra, are the directions. Eleven were the Rudras, and twelve the months of the year and the Adityas. Then Vandin said, the thirteenth lunar day is most auspicious, and thirteen islands exist on earth. And there he stopped. He had no more to say. Ashtavakra finished the verse for him: thirteen sacrifices are presided over by Kesi. Vandin stood silent, his head bowed, while the assembly broke into a long uproar. The Brahmanas came forward with joined hands to honor the boy.

Ashtavakra said, this man used to throw defeated Brahmanas into the water. Let him meet the same fate. Seize him and drown him. Vandin spoke to Janaka. I am the son of King Varuna, he said. A twelve-year sacrifice has begun at Varuna's home, and I sent the Brahmanas there to see it. Look, they are returning. I honor Ashtavakra, by whose grace I will today join my father. Janaka offered Vandin to the boy, and Ashtavakra said that if Varuna was truly his father, let him be drowned in the sea. Vandin answered that he had no fear of it. Ashtavakra would see his lost father Kahoda this very moment.

The Brahmanas rose before Janaka, honored by Varuna, and among them stood Kahoda. This is why men pray for sons, he said. What I failed to do, my son has done. Then Vandin, with the king's leave, entered the sea. Ashtavakra honored his father and was honored by the Brahmanas. He went home to his hermitage with his uncle Swetaketu. In front of his mother, Kahoda told him, go into the river Samanga. Ashtavakra stepped into the water, and all his crooked limbs became straight. From that day the river was called Samanga, and whoever bathes in it is freed from sin. Lomasa told Yudhishthira to bathe there with his brothers and his wife.

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