Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c6.109

v1.c6.109

levirate) ¹; 3rd, niruktaja (begotten by one expressly named, that is, by one that has been asked to fertilize, and that probably by the husband) ; 4th, praṣritaja (“begotten by one that has come”, that is, according to Nil., by another man from sexual appetite, who has not been asked to do it, that is, the gūḍhaja) ; 5th, the son, begotten with the man’s own wife, of one that has been expelled from his caste (?) ²; 6th, datta ; 7th, kṛita ; 8th, adhyūḍha (added by marriage = sahoḍha or acquired by marriage) ; 9th, kānīna. After this come the twelve other kinds of sons which are found as the result of a quite different principle, namely : the six apadhvaṃsaja (three sons of the Brahman with Kshattriyā, Vaiçyā, and Çūdrā ; two sons of the Kshattriya with Vaiçyā and Çūdrā ; one son of the Vaiçya with Çūdrā), and the six apasada (three sons of Çūdrā with a Brahman woman, Kshattriyā, Vaiçyā, that is, the cāṇḍāla, vrātya, vaidya ; two sons of the Vaiçya from a Brahman woman and a Kshattriyā, that is, the māgadha and the vāmaka ; and one son of the Kshattriya from a Brahman woman, namely the sūta). Then Yudhishṭhira asks : “Some say that a son is the product of the field, others that he is the product of the seed. The same is true of both : that they are sons. But whose? Tell me that.” Bhīshma spoke : “He that is begotten of the (husband’s own) seed is his son, and he that has grown up on his field, if he has been given up (by his real begetter), he that is ‘added by marriage’, if the contract is broken (samayaṃ bhittvā).” He then explains this thus : “If a man begets a son from himself, and then on some ground gives him up, then the seed has nothing to say here, but he belongs to the lord of the field. If a man weds a maiden in his yearning for a son, for the sake of a son, then it is the growing up from his own field that decides, and he is not the son of his begetter. Moreover the son that has grown up on the field (anyatra lakṣyate) betrays himself, for the self (of the begetter) (which shows itself again in the child) cannot be destroyed ; we come to it (come on its tracks) through the pattern (that is, we look at the father, and know by the likeness that he has again produced his self in a certain child).”¹ According to this it would therefore seem that the husband need only to recognize this child of his wife, already pregnant at marriage, if he knew of her being pregnant, and approved of it, or, indeed, actually chose the girl for that reason.² Anyatra generally means “ in the other case ” (and Böhtl. does not once give “ moreover ”). Taking all into account we must so translate here too; and the çloka that begins with it would then all the more clearly leave the husband the right to assign to the begetter as revealed by nature the fruit of his wife’s body, of which he had no knowledge at the wedding, and which he does not want. The kṛitaka or kṛitrima is then thus drastically defined: He that is put out on the street by his parents, and then is taken to himself by a man (yas tam prakalpayet), and whose parents are not known, this is the kṛitrima.¹ His sonship is derived only from the taking over (saṃgraha) by the adoptive parents, not from the “ seed ” nor from the “ field ”. This man who was once masterless belongs to his present master, comes into the caste of him that rears him, must be equipped by him like his own son with the sacraments of his caste and kindred, and may be chosen for kinship by marriage.² Further on we find it said: “ The son of an unmarried woman, and he that is added by marriage are to be looked on as sprung from sin (kilbiṣa), but the sacraments are to be carried out on them also, as on the sons of the body.”