Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.1603

c8.1603

NIYOGA. During the Vedic period there prevailed a system or custom which permitted either the husband or the wife who had no child by his wife or her husband to procreate a child in another woman or beget children by another man. That custom, called Niyoga fell into disuse after the Vedic period. (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 256).