Ashtavakra and King Janaka

King Janaka, mighty ruler of ancient Mithila, had a dream.  He dreamt that he was in a large forest, destitute and starving. Yet somehow he managed to find some plants and roots in the jungle and with great care was able to prepare a meager meal.  But just as he was ready to satisfy his hunger with the modest food he had prepared, a large bull stormed into the clearing where King Janaka had made himself comfortable. Within seconds the bull had devoured every last bit of the food.  The King cried in frustrated disappointment and at this point he woke up.

This dream puzzled him greatly and he wanted to know: What is the Truth? Who am I, am I the king in this palace, ruling a kingdom or am I this man lost and starving in the forest?

He wanted to find out.  He invited all the scholarly pundits from far and wide to give him the answer to his question – offering half his kingdom for a satisfactory reply.  Many came, after all there was the enticement of half a kingdom to consider, but alas, no one could find a suitable answer. 

Finally one man stepped forward, deformed in eight joints and because of that was named Ashtavakra, (Eight Bends).  All the other ‘wise’ men began to laugh and made derisive jokes at his deformities.  Ashtavakra looked around the assembly and said:  “I thought I was in the company of wise men, but now I realize that you are those who can only see the outside, the skin.  Since you have only recognized my deformed body and not my Self, I cannot believe that I am in the company of astute scholars who cannot understand that “although the river may be crooked, the water never is…”    

Then he moved on to the King and said:  “So you want to give me half your kingdom. How do you plan to do this - does it even belong to you? “ 

“But, yes, of course it belongs to me; I am the legal, bona fide king.”

“So you think it belongs to you; before you, who owned the kingdom?”

“My father.”

“And before that?”

“His father”

“After you?”

“My sons”

“So how come it was not yours before and will not yours be after you, yet in between you became the owner of the kingdom? “

The king had to admit that there had been a flaw in his thinking and that he was actually only the caretaker of the kingdom and that it did not belong to him. Ashtavakra had made it clear to him that he could not give what he did not own.

The king puzzled for a moment, then said:

“Alright, I’ll give you my body”

“Oh King, you are making the same mistake again, are you the owner of this body?”

“Yes, of course, I am the dweller of this body, therefore I own it, and everything is under my control.”

“And where was this body of yours 100 years ago and where will it be 100 years from now?”

Again the king had to admit that the body did not really belong to him either and that it was just given to him on loan by Mother Nature for the duration of a lifetime, after which it would have to be returned to Nature.

“Alright, said the king, “I’ll give you my mind”

“You think you own your mind; you cannot even control your mind. How can you give something over which you have no control? You tell your mind to do this and it does not even listen to you?”

In due course the king, quite defeated by Ashtavakra’s logic and wisdom, said:

“Oh Master, I really must it some give some thought to what is really mine… “

Eventually King Janaka realized that he was in the presence of a great Master, and asked to be accepted as Ashtavakra’s disciple to be taught the mysteries of the Self.

The essence of the dialogue between King Janaka and Ashtavakra is beautifully rendered in the Ashtavakra Gita.

You are the Solitary Witness
of All That Is,
forever free.
Your only bondage is not seeing This.