Ashtavakra (epic)
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Cover page of Ashtavakra (epic), first edition
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| Author | Jagadguru Rambhadracharya |
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| Original title | Aṣṭāvakra (Epic Poem) |
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi |
| Genre | Epic Poetry |
| Publisher | Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Handicapped University |
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Publication date
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14 January 2010 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 223 pp (first edition) |
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This article is part of a series on Rambhadracharya |
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Aṣṭāvakra (Hindi: अष्टावक्र) (2010) is a Hindi epic poem (Mahakavya) composed by Jagadguru Rambhadracharya (1950–) in the year 2009. It consists of 864 verses in 8 cantos (sargas) of 108 verses each. The poem presents the narrative of the Ṛṣi Aṣṭāvakra which is found in the Hindu scriptures of the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata. A copy of the epic was published by the Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Handicapped University, Chitrakuta, Uttar Pradesh. The book was released on 14 January 2010, on the sixtieth birthday (Ṣaṣṭipūrti) of the poet.
The protagonist of the epic, Aṣṭāvakra, is physically disabled with eight deformities in his body. The epic presents his journey from adversity to success to final redemption. According to the poet, who is also disabled having lost his eyesight at the age of two months, the notions of aphoristic solutions for universal difficulties of the disabled are presented the epic, and the eight cantos are the analyses of the eight dispositions in the mind of the disabled.
The epic narrates the life of Aṣṭāvakra as found in the Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, the Vana parva of the Mahābhārata, the Aṣṭāvakra Gītā and the play Uttararamacarita by Bhavabhuti. The sage Uddālaka, the Ṛṣi mentioned in the Chandogya Upaniṣad, has a disciple by the name Kahola. Uddālaka offers his daughter Sujātā in marriage to Kahola, and the newly-wed couple starts living in an Āśrama in a forest. Sujātā becomes pregnant after some years. The child, while still in the womb, one day tells its father Kahola that he is making eight errors in each Vedic Mantra while reciting them at night. Enraged, Kahola curses the child to be born with all eight limbs (feet, knees, hands, chest and head) deformed.
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