The Ashtavakra Gita also known as Ashtavakra Samhita is an Advaita Vedanta scripture which documents a dialogue between the Perfect Master Ashtavakra and Janaka, the King of Mithila. Ashtavakra , in Sanskrit means "Eight bends". As the name suggests, Ashtavakra is a scholarly sage, or the master, with eight distortions in his body. A short summary of how he was distorted could be found here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra
King Janaka, one of the well-sought, perfect king has the habit of falling asleep on his throne during the court hearings. One such day, he goes through a wierd dream, where he is a beggar knocking all the doors for a piece of bread. With great difficulty he manages to scalp a small piece of bread and hides it into his dhoti. Due to his hunger he is in no mood to share the bread that he has got. In those days, it has been a practise to share the food that one has with all the people around him. The violent hunger that he had forces him to move to an isolated place, so then he could happily eat it by himself. He finds an isolated tree totally disconnected from the world. He then takes out the piece of bread that he had hidden inside and when he was about to eat it, a crow that was watching him snatches that piece of bread and flies away. With the tremendous pain of anger and hunger, he runs behind the crow shouting at it to give back the bread to him. At this juncture, janaka wakes up from his dream and realises that he is in the middle of the court proceedings, some discussions happening around him. The king senses the hunger in his stomach at that instant, and compares himself with his state in dream and is totally confused of what's reality. He is unable to figure out if his state is the same as the beggar that he dreamt off.
With this confusion in mind, the king approaches Ashtavakra with a lot of questions in his mind. Ashtavakra quickly recognises the king's confusion and provides him the knowledge of self-realisation. The original verses could be found here .
This purest knowledge has been compiled in 30 CD's as explained by sri sri Ravishankar. To acquire this knowledge, one has to maintain disipline in controlling the body, tongue (speech and eating) and mind.
Janaka asks Ashtavakra, "How to obtain knowledge ? How to realise it practically ?
How to get freed or liberated ? How is one to reach the state of being dispassionate ?"
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Ashtavakra Gita
To free oneself from the cycle of life and death one should withdraw from all Earthly desires, worries and cares. To continue induldging in Earthly things even after one has realised their true nature is said to be foolish and time wasting. Instead it paints a picture of The Master as someone who continues to keep up their responsibilities in the world, not because they believe they have to or due to any worldy attachments, but simply that it is in their nature to do so.
