What is "ashtavakra"

Ashtavakra (, IAST Aṣṭāvakra) is a sage mentioned in Hindu scriptures. He is described as one born with eight different deformities of the body (two feet, two knees, two hands, the chest and the head). In Sanskrit, Aṣṭāvakra means "one having eight bends". Ashta (IAST Aṣṭa) means eight, while Vakra means bend or deformity. Aṣṭāvakra is the author of the work Aṣṭāvakra Gītā, also known as Aṣṭāvakra Saṃhitā, a treatise on the instruction by Aṣṭāvakra to Janaka about the Self. Aṣṭāvakra is the Guru of the king Janaka and the sage Yājñavalkya.

Aṣṭāvakra (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.