Ashtavakra means "eight bends" in Sanskrit.
Ashtavakra is a sage who is the son of Khagodara in the Mahabharata, the second of the two major Hindu epics.
- According to legend, Ashtavakra is a very clever kid, which leads him into a lot of trouble.
- Ashtavakra corrects his father's pronunciation of a mantra while still in his mother's womb.
- His father curses him to be bent in retaliation, and the kid is born with eight bends in his body.
- Despite his odd looks, Ashtavakra grows up to become a wise man and is generally regarded as the composer of the Ashtavakragita (“Song of Ashtavakra”).
This book explains the philosophical idea of monism, which is the view that the whole world is based on a single Supreme Reality (called Brahman), and that other things are just different expressions of this reality.
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