Janaka

Yudhishthira sits sorrowing on the ground after losing everything. The learned brahmana Shounaka sees his grief and recites the ancient shlokas of King Janaka — a systematic argument that attachment is the root of all misery, and that the wise should not crave riches.

Pregnant and poor, Sujata asks her husband Kahoda how they will survive after the child is born. Kahoda goes to King Janaka's court to seek wealth — but Bandi, a skilled debater, defeats him in a contest, and Kahoda is drowned in the waters. Uddalaka learns of the defeat and tells Sujata to keep it secret from her son.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When the brahmana arrives at the slaughterhouse, the hunter rises, greets him by name, and reveals he knows the woman's message. He takes the brahmana home, offers hospitality, and explains his family's hereditary occupation, his personal virtues, and how King Janaka's righteous rule keeps all varnas in their proper dharma.

A brahmana, told by a wise woman that a virtuous hunter in Mithila knows dharma, censures himself for his doubt and sets out. He travels through forests and cities to reach Janaka's holy capital, inquires about the hunter, and finds him seated in a slaughterhouse selling meat.

Markandeya begins to answer Yudhishthira's request by tracing the lineage of Rama from the Ikshvaku king Aja through Dasharatha and his four sons. Then he turns to Ravana's birth, describing how the god Prajapati's line passed through Pulastya, and how a father's anger created the sage Vishrava — the father of the rakshasa king.