<\/p>\n
Once Janaka, the wise king, called a meeting of \u00a0all scholars, saints and wise men of his kingdom. He asked them-
\n\u201cWho among you can expound on \u00a0Self- Knowledge, within a very short time?\u00a0I invite such a person to occupy the seat of honour on the dais.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was \u00a0pin drop silence in the court. Not a single person came forward to answer the king.<\/p>\n
At that juncture Ashtavakra, a deformed person entered the hall. The gathering of scholars \u00a0laughed at his uncouth appearance. When they stopped laughing, Ashtavakra began to laugh loudly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The \u00a0King asked the reason for his laughter.<\/p>\n
Ashtavakra replied-
\n\u201cI thought there were scholars and jnanis in this gathering. But I find only leather merchants and pimps \u00a0here.<\/p>\n
The leather merchants feel happy when they look at beautiful skin. They are not interested in what is inside. \u00a0Similarly, those who engage in prostitution attach great significance to external appearance.
\nBut inner beauty and strength are more important than the external form.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The king was happy with Ashtavakra\u2019s explanation and invited him to occupy the seat of honour on the dais.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Translated by : Dr. Sharada Jayagovind<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once Janaka, the wise king, called a meeting of \u00a0all scholars, saints and wise men of his kingdom. He asked them- \u201cWho among you can expound on \u00a0Self- Knowledge, within a very short time?\u00a0I invite such a person to occupy the seat of honour on the dais.\u201d There was \u00a0pin drop silence in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shrisamsthana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagesrimukha.srisamsthana.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagesrimukha.srisamsthana.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagesrimukha.srisamsthana.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagesrimukha.srisamsthana.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagesrimukha.srisamsthana.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stagesrimukha.srisamsthana.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":803,"href":"https:\/\/stagesrimukha.srisamsthana.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions\/803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagesrimukha.srisamsthana.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagesrimukha.srisamsthana.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagesrimukha.srisamsthana.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}