History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.90.3

v4.c62.90.3

Arjuna upbraids Bhīmasena who got enraged against Yudhiṣṭhira 'who would act against one's eldest brother that follows the path of dharma?' (Sabhā 68.8). In the Rāmāyaṇa⁵¹ Daśaratha addresses Rāma (II. 3.40) 'you are born of my eldest queen, who is of the same class as myself (i. e. of kṣatriya blood)' and Vasiṣṭha says to Rāma 'Among all Ikṣvākus the eldest son becomes the king; a younger brother is not crowned king when the elder exists' (II. 110.36). The Ayodhyākāṇḍa in several places (8.23-24, 101.2) reiterates the idea that all the sons of a king do not succeed but only the eldest, although the other sons may be equally fit and endowed with qualities. Kauṭilya (I. 17)⁵² states that people esteem rulership going to the eldest except in the case of some calamity. Manu IX. 106 says that by the very birth of the eldest son, a man becomes free from the debt he owes to his *pitṛs* and therefore the eldest deserves to get everything from the father. The Rājadharmak. (pp. 234-235) after quoting the Kālikāpurāṇa and the Rāmāyaṇa lays down the following propositions: (1) the aurasa son of a king alone succeeds in preference to the eleven kinds of secondary sons (whether he is junior or senior in age); (2) if the son of a junior queen (of the same caste) is senior by birth, he succeeds in preference to the son of the senior queen, who (son) is younger in age; (3) if two sons are born to two queens at the same moment, the son of the senior queen is preferred;