Cursed in the Womb

The sage Uddālaka had a pupil named Kahoḍa, who served his teacher faithfully and studied with him for a long time. The other pupils looked down on him. When the teacher learned of it, he gave Kahoḍa at once all his learning, and his own daughter Sujātā as his wife.

Sujātā conceived a child as bright as fire. One night, as Kahoḍa sat reciting the Veda, the sacred knowledge of the brahmins, the child in the womb said to him: Father, you recite all night long, but you do not recite it quite rightly. The great sage, rebuked in front of his pupils, was angry, and he cursed the unborn child: Because you speak from inside the womb, you will be born bent in eight places. And so the child was born, bent in eight places, and he became the great sage known as Aṣṭāvakra, the eight times bent. His mother's brother was Śvetaketu, Uddālaka's son, who was the same age as he.