000.Introduction
This is a collection of extracted text in English from a book titled Ashtavakra Samhita authored by Swami Nityaswarupananda ISBN 978-81-85301-13-6 a publication of Advaita shrama 5 Delhi Entally Road, Kolkata 700 014. A short introduction : Ashtavakra ( Sanskrit : अष्टावक्रः , IAST : Aṣṭāvakraḥ ) or Ushtaavukruhu is a revered Vedic sage in Hinduism . His name literally means "eight deformities", reflecting the eight physical deformities he was born with. His maternal grandfather was the Vedic sage Aruni , his parents were both Vedic students at Aruni's school. Ashtavakra studied, became a sage and a celebrated character of the Hindu Itihasa epics and Puranaas - Source - Wikipedia The story goes that King Janaka accepts twelve year old Ashtavakra as his Guru and seeks to know the reality of human existence, upon listening to Ashtavakra admonishing the learned scholars in Janaka’s court for they ridiculing...