THE KNOWLEDGE OF ASHTAVAKRA

THE KNOWLEDGE OF ASHTAVAKRA

6-AUG-ENG 2

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

ARA-------------------------The sage was impressed by the talent of his disciple Kahod and he married his daughter Sujata to Kahod. After Sujata became pregnant, sage Kahod used to recite Vedas to Sujata. Then a child spoke from Sujata's womb- 'Father! You are reciting the Vedas wrongly.' On this, Kahod got angry and cursed that you will be born crooked from eight places. After a few days, Kahod lost a debate with a great scholar Bandi in the court of King Janak and as per the rules, Kahod had to take Jal Samadhi. After a few days, Ashtavakra was born.

One day, when his mother came to know the truth about his father, Ashtavakra became sad and twelve-year-old Ashtavakra reached the court of King Janak to debate with Bandi. As soon as he came to the court, he challenged Bandi for a debate, but on seeing Ashtavakra, all the scholars and the members of the court started laughing, because he was crooked in eight places, people started laughing just because of his gait. Everyone was laughing at Ashtavakra and Ashtavakra at everyone. Janak asked- 'O child! I understand the laughter of all the people, but why are you laughing?

Ashtavakra said- Maharaj, your court is the court of cobblers, who are laughing at the deformity of my skin, there is no scholar among them! They are experts of leather. The sky does not become crooked due to the crookedness of the temple and the sky does not break due to the broken pot. After this, Bandi lost the debate. Ashtavakra requested to drown Bandi in water. Bandi said that I am Varun-putra and I send all the defeated Brahmins to my father. I will call them back. All the defeated Brahmins came back, among them was Ashtavakra's father Kahod. After this, King Janak made Ashtavakra his Guru and attained self-knowledge from him. This conversation between King Janak and Ashtavakra is known as Ashtavakra Geeta.

Just as the value of gold does not decrease if the ornaments are old or less beautiful, the soul element does not decrease due to the ugliness of the body. One should never be impressed by seeing the beauty of a person's body or feel disgusted by seeing someone's ugliness, because the body is made of bones and flesh. If you want to see, then see his knowledge, love and divinity, because everyone's soul is the same..!!