Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c6.35

v1.c6.35

Pāṇḍu in i, 120.15 ff. bewails his sorrow to the holy men : “ For him that has no offspring no door to heaven is known or is named ; this torments me. I am not free of my debt towards my forbears. When my life is at an end, then it is the end of my fathers. Men are born on earth with four kinds of duty : towards the forefathers, the gods, the Ṛishis, and mankind, and to them the debt must be paid according to the holy law. But for those that do not look to this debt at the fitting time, for them are no worlds of heaven ; thus have those learned in the law laid it down. It is through sacrifices that the gods are appeased, the Munis through the study of the Vedas (composed by the Ṛishis) and through asceticism, the fathers through sons, through gifts to forbears, and mankind through benevolent charity.” And in v, 118.7 f. Gālava speaks to King Uçīnara : “ Thou art childless ; beget two sons. In the boat of ‘ son ’, ferry thy forefathers and thee thyself over to the other shore. For he that partakes of the fruit of sons is not cast down from heaven, nor does he go to the dreadful hell like the sonless.” So vii, 173.53, 54 teaches : “ For men yearn for sons to this end : Who shall save us from sorrow ? For their own good do fathers yearn after sons, who with friendly hearts bring them salvation from out of this world in that beyond.” Sadly speaks Pāṇḍu to Kuntī (i, 120.28–30) : “ Offspring, indeed, is the abiding-place in the worlds that concords with the law. I have sacrificed, given alms, practised asceticism, thoroughly carried out vows of mortification, but all this, it is declared, does not purge the childless man of sin. I, a childless man, shall not reach the pure, fair worlds.” Here belongs ii, 41.27, 28 : “ To make offerings to the gods, to give alms, to study the holy writings, and to sacrifice with abundant sacrificial gifts, all this is not worth a sixteenth part so much as offspring. Whatever he brings about with many vows and much fasting, all is fruitless for the childless man.” So in i, 100.67–69 : “ The sacrifice in fire, the three Vedas, and the propagation of the family are everlasting. All of them (that is, of the other things) are not worth a sixteenth part of offspring.¹ So it is among mankind, and just so among creatures. Thus it is. What is called offspring, *that* it is which is the threefold Veda of the ancients, and of the godheads that which lasteth for ever.” ¹—“ Three are the lights which man has on earth : children, deeds, knowledge ” (ii, 72.5 ; and K., i, 107.73) ; and as a rule of life we find in xiii, 68.34 : “ Let a man wed and beget sons, for in them there is a profit greater than any other profit.” The sonless man was born to no end (iii, 200.4 f.), and he that does not propagate himself is godless (adharmika) ; for to carry on the blood is the highest duty and virtue (xii, 34.14).² As is well known, therefore, for the Indians the birth of a son is looked on as the greatest happiness on earth. From the Epic we will take only one saying about this, and it we take because of the nobility of soul shown there : “ The gift of a kingdom, the birth of a son, and the saving of a foe from a danger—these three are one and the same thing ” (iii, 243.13 ; v, 33.67). The son is the very self of his begetter in many meanings of that word, born anew from his wife, as we so often read in Indian literature, and also, for instance, in iii, 313.71 ; xiv, 81.20 ; 90.63.