Ashtavakra

According to the Mahabharata and Puranic tradition, Ashtavakra was the son of the sage Kahoda. While still in the womb, the unborn child heard his father reciting the Vedas incorrectly and corrected him. The enraged father cursed his own son to be born with eight crooks (ashta-vakra) in his body, bent and twisted in eight places.

When Ashtavakra was twelve, he learned that his father had been defeated in philosophical debate by Vandin, the court scholar of King Janaka of Mithila, and had been imprisoned underwater. The boy traveled alone to Janaka's court, where the guards refused to admit him on account of his deformed appearance.

When he finally entered the royal assembly, the scholars laughed at his twisted body. Ashtavakra laughed louder. When King Janaka asked why, the boy replied: 'I came expecting an assembly of sages, but I find only cobblers here, men who judge by the skin.' Silenced and ashamed, the scholars listened as this child defeated Vandin in debate and freed his father.

King Janaka, recognizing the boy's extraordinary realization, became his disciple. The dialogue between them forms the Ashtavakra Gita, perhaps the most uncompromising text on pure non-duality ever composed. In it, Ashtavakra declares that the Self is already free, already pure, already complete, and that all spiritual practice, all seeking, all doing is itself the only obstacle.