Uddālaka offers his daughter Sujātā in marriage to Kahoda, and the newly-wed couple starts living in an Āśrama in a forest.

The child, while still in the womb, one day tells its father Kahoda that he is making eight errors in each Vedic Mantra while reciting them at night.

Enraged, Kahoda curses the child to be born with all eight limbs (feet, knees, hands, chest and head) deformed.

A courtier of Janaka, Bandī (Vandī) defeats Kahoda in Śāstrārtha (verbal duel on the meaning of scriptures) and immerses the Ṛṣi under water using the Varuṇapāśa.

Aṣṭāvakra travels to Mithilā with his uncle Śvetaketu and defeats respectively the gatekeeper, king Janaka and Bandī in Śāstrārtha, and then secures the release of his father Kahoda.

At the end, Aṣṭāvakra, inspired by the sage Vasiṣṭha, arrives in the court of Sītā and Rāma, and is elated to be honoured in the assembly of Ayodhyā.

A metaphor used in the explanation of Sādhanā (6.4–6.5) combines all the six Āstika schools of Hindu philosophy – Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Vaiśeṣika, Nyāya, Mimāṃsā and Vedānta.

The verse 8.4 mentions the differing opinions about the worldly creation in the Hindu philosophy – some say it is made of Śabda, while some say it is either Pariṇāma or Vivarta.

Different caste and religious groups have demanded reservations in educational institutes and/or public sector in recent times, which has often led to unrest, protests, and conflicts between judiciary and legislature.

[15][16][17][18] In the fifth canto of the epic, while speaking to himself when comparing the learning abilities of Aṣṭāvakra (who is disabled) with those of Śvetaketu and other disciples, Uddālaka says[19] – Devanagari प्रातिभ क्षेत्र में आरक्षण न कदापि राष्ट्रहित में समुचित । यह घोर निरादर प्रतिभा का अवनति का पथ अतिशय अनुचित ॥

In the fourth canto, while speaking to Sujāta, Uddālaka says – the notion that the disabled are a burden on family and not worthy of attention will decay the world.

In the seventh canto, in Aṣṭāvakra's soliloquy, the poet says that making fun of the disabled is never appropriate, for they are created by the same craftsman as the entire creation.

Yamaka is a kind of pun in Saṃskṛta (and also in Hindi and other Prākṛta languages) where a word occurs multiple times and each occurrence has a different meaning.

He was the adornment of the world, the remover of all arguments against the enemy of Dūṣaṇa (Rāma), and crest jewel of the clan of Nimi.

॥ 7.32 ॥In the second half of verse the 1.21, the poet uses the words raurava and gaurava in the same line four and three times respectively, with a different meaning in each occurrence.

rauravasahita rahita raurava se rauravakṛta jitaraurava the gauravamaya abhimāna vivarjita śritagaurava hitagaurava the ॥

aṣṭāvakra maharṣi vākya kaha rahe jyoṃ ho rahe mauna the tyoṃ hī bipra kahola ke nayana bhī nīrandhravarṣī bane । sīmantonnayanīya vedavidhi bhī sampanna prāyaḥ huī gāeँ deva sabhī kaholasuta kā śārdūlavikrīḍitam ॥

As the great sage Aṣṭāvakra became silent on uttering these words, tears began to flow uninterrupted from the eyes of the Brāhmaṇa Kahola.

The Readers' Forum of the Madhya Pradesh Sahitya Akademi organised a conference of reviewers in September 2010 to critique the epic in Ashoknagar.

[26] The chief reviewer, Professor S N Saxena, said that the epic is the story from struggle to success, and is a source of inspiration for the disabled, coming out of the poet's own experience.

Other reviewers at the conference included writers Ram Sevak Soni, Sudhir Gupta, Subhash Jain Saral and Pradeep Manoria.

The Madhya Pradesh Sahitya Akademi organised another conference of reviewers at Damoh in November 2010, where various littérateurs discussed the epic.