The Woman Who Out-Argued a King

The sages told the Pandavas of Sulabha, the woman ascetic, and King Janaka of Mithila - a tale of how a wandering woman sage humbled a famous philosopher-king, and proved that true renunciation is a thing of the inner heart, not of the outward life.

King Janaka of Mithila was renowned throughout the land as a royal sage, a rajarshi - a king who claimed to have attained liberation and freedom from all bondage while yet seated upon his throne, ruling his great kingdom and living amid all its wealth and power. He prided himself on this: that he could possess a kingdom and yet be free, be in the midst of the world and yet not bound by it, a liberated soul in a king's robes. His fame for this spread far, and reached at last the ears of a woman of great learning and spiritual power named Sulabha.