Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c6.84

v1.c6.84

The niyoga in the narrower meaning, the levirate, on the other hand is represented by the well-known begetting of Pāṇḍu himself, and of Dhṛtarāṣṭra (i, 103 ff.). After King Vicitravīrya has died childless, his mother Satyavatī comes to her husband’s son, to Bhīṣma, and says that, as the only shield of his family and its earthly and heavenly welfare, and as one that knows and carefully follows the law and the truth, he must in agreement with these both, and at their behest (niyoga) beget offspring for his dead brother with the two young and beautiful wives of the dead man. Bhīṣma now sees that this is dharma, but he reminds her that for her sake, so that his father might marry her, he has sworn never to touch a woman; and the sun can lose its light, and the host of the elements their properties, but he cannot be faithless to the truth and his word. He tells her now how the whole Kṣattriya caste was after its utter destruction called back again to life through the union of the Kṣattriya women with the Brahmans, how Bṛhaspati, Utathya’s brother, lay with his sister-in-law, and how the fruit of her body, Dīrghatamas, born blind through the holy man’s curse, had been appointed royal purveyor of children to the court in the house of Bali; and he puts it to her that in this case, too, a Brahman should be hired. But she then tells him, in laughing confusion and halting words, of her youthful adventure with the penitent Parāçara, and the result of this affair, the famous Vyāsa. So soon as she thinks of him, he will come, she says. He it is that, appointed by her (niyukta), shall see to the matter. Bhīṣma is satisfied with this; she tells the Yogi, who at once appears, as follows: “To the father and the mother children are born as common property. Just as the father is lord over them, so is the mother. As thou by the hand of fate art my first son,¹ so Vicitravīrya was my child born after thee. As Bhīshma on the father’s side, thou art Vicitravīrya’s brother on the mother’s side.” Bhīshma, she says, cannot undertake the business after his oath, so Vyāsa, out of regard for his brother, and to carry on the line shall raise up children by the young and lovely wives at Bhīshma’s spoken word, and at her bidding; and he has the power to do it. The penitent consents, but makes it a condition that the two widows must first for a year keep a vow of mortification to be drawn up by him,² so as to be cleansed, for otherwise a woman may not draw nigh to him; also they must take his personal qualities as part of the bargain. Splendidly decked, and having bathed on the fourth day after the monthly cleansing, the eldest first awaits the appointed—but to her wrapped in mystery—father of her future child. Now the smell of holiness is not to everyone’s liking, particularly in Old India, where penitents look on dirt and piety as inseparable; moreover Vyāsa after the Rishi kind has red hair, and with it flaming eyes and a red-brown moustache, and other ugly qualities. So she shuts her eyes at the sight of him. As a result her son shall, according to the inspired man’s words, be born blind. The mother Satyavatī wails: “A blind man cannot rule; beget another.” He agrees. But the second wife becomes quite wan (pāṇḍu) when the visitor appears by night. So she bears a pale son, Pāṇḍu. Satyavatī now wants a third grandson, and therefore once more charges Vyāsa and the eldest daughter-in-law. The latter, however, thinks of the evil smell and the ugliness of the Rishi, and sends in her own stead a splendidly adorned slave-girl. With this latter the ascetic then helps to bring Vidura into being. Cp. v, 147.17-47.