Ashtavakra

Ashtavakra and Shvetaketu set out for King Janaka's sacrifice. On the road, Ashtavakra encounters the king himself and is restrained. He speaks words to Janaka — words that will set the stage for a confrontation with Bandi, the man who drowned his father.

Yudhishthira asks Lomasha to explain the power of the brahmana who vanquished Bandi and why he was born with eight deformities. Lomasha tells the story: Kahoda, a devoted disciple of Uddalaka, marries Uddalaka's daughter Sujata, and their unborn child — radiant as fire — speaks from the womb to correct his father's recitation. Insulted before his own students, Kahoda curses the child to be crooked in eight ways.

For twelve years, Ashtavakra believed Uddalaka was his father and Shvetaketu his brother. Then Shvetaketu saw him on Uddalaka's lap, grasped him by the hand, and told him the truth: "This is not your father's lap." Weeping, Ashtavakra goes to his mother, who finally tells him everything about Kahoda's defeat and drowning at Janaka's court.

Ashtavakra enters King Janaka's court and declares his intent to defeat Bandi in debate. Janaka tests him with riddles — about the wheel of time, the wind and its offspring, and the nature of fish, eggs, stones, and rivers. Ashtavakra answers each one without hesitation, and Janaka recognizes him as no ordinary child.

Ashtavakra, a ten-year-old boy with a twisted body, arrives at King Janaka's great sacrifice but is stopped at the gate. The gatekeeper bars him, citing Bandi's order: no child brahmanas may enter. Ashtavakra does not plead. He argues — that age is measured by learning and vows, not by years or limbs — and demands entry to face Bandi in debate.

Ashtavakra demands that Bandi be seized and immersed in water, following the same dharma Bandi imposed on other defeated brahmanas. But Bandi reveals he is the son of King Varuna — and that the brahmanas he defeated were not drowned, but sent to witness a divine sacrifice.

At King Janaka's great sacrifice, the suta's son Bandi boasts that all other kings are inferior to Janaka. The deformed young sage Ashtavakra, his wrath aroused, challenges Bandi to a debate — a contest of numerical riddles that climbs from one to thirteen, until one of them falls silent.