“Vaisampayana said, ‘On hearing these words of her afflicted parents, the daughter was filled with grief, and she addressed them, saying, ‘Why are you so afflicted and why do you so weep, as if you have none to look after you? O, listen to me and do what may be proper. There is little doubt that you are bound in duty to abandon me at a certain time. Sure to abandon me once, O, abandon me now and save every thing at the expense of me alone. Men desire to have children, thinking that children would save them (in this world as well as in the region hereafter). O, cross the stream of your difficulties by means of my poor self, as if I were a raft. A child rescueth his parents in this and the other regions; therefore is the child called by the learned Putra (rescuer). The ancestors desire daughter’s sons from me (as a special means of salvation). But (without waiting for my children) I myself will rescue them by protecting the life of my father. This my brother is of tender years, so there is little doubt that he will perish if thou diest now. If thou, my father, diest and my brother followeth thee, the funeral cake of the Pitris will be suspended and they will be greatly injured. Left behind by my father and brother, and by my mother also (for she will not survive her husband and son) I shall be plunged deeper and deeper in woe and ultimately perish in great distress. There can be little doubt that if thou escape from this danger as also my mother and infant brother, then thy race and the (ancestral) cake will be perpetuated. The son is one’s own self; the wife is one’s friend; the daughter, however, is the source of trouble. Do thou save thyself, therefore, by removing that source of trouble, and do thou thereby set me in the path of virtue. As I am a girl, O father, destitute of thee, I shall be helpless and plunged in woe, and shall have to go everywhere.Mbh 1.161.2a · Mahabharata · ADI PARVA
Mbh 1.161.2a
Mahabharata · translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Themes in this passage
FamilyChildrenDoubtSufferingDeathDesireDharmaGrief
Family in other traditions
The same theme, as Christianity, Islam, Hellenism and Taoism address it.
The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.Luke 12:53 · Bible · Luke
Unto the men (of a family) belongeth a share of that which parents and near kindred leave, and unto the women a share of that which parents and near kindred leave, whether it be little or much - a legal share.Quran 4:7 · Quran · Women
“O wretched husband of a wretched wife! Born with one fate, to one unhappy life! For sure one star its baneful beam display’d On Priam’s roof, and Hippoplacia’s shade. From different parents, different climes we came. At different periods, yet our fate the same! Why was my birth to great Aëtion owed, And why was all that tender care bestow’d? Would I had never been!—O thou, the ghost Of my dead husband! miserably lost! Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone! And I abandon’d, desolate, alone! An only child, once comfort of my pains, Sad product now of hapless love, remains! No more to smile upon his sire; no friend To help him now! no father to defend! For should he ’scape the sword, the common doom, What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come! Even from his own paternal roof expell’d, Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field. The day, that to the shades the father sends, Robs the sad orphan of his father’s friends: He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears; Amongst the happy, unregarded, he Hangs on the robe, or trembles at the knee, While those his father’s former bounty fed Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread: The kindest but his present wants allay, To leave him wretched the succeeding day. Frugal compassion! Heedless, they who boast Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, Shall cry, ‘Begone! thy father feasts not here:’ The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear. Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, To my sad soul Astyanax appears! Forced by repeated insults to return, And to his widow’d mother vainly mourn: He, who, with tender delicacy bred, With princes sported, and on dainties fed, And when still evening gave him up to rest, Sunk soft in down upon the nurse’s breast, Must—ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls,[279] Is now that name no more, unhappy boy! Since now no more thy father guards his Troy.Iliad 22.46a · Iliad · 22
When the mother is found, we know what her children should be. When one knows that he is his mother's child, and proceeds to guard (the qualities of) the mother that belong to him, to the end of his life he will be free from all peril.Tao Te Ching 52.2 · Tao Te Ching
See what all six traditions say about family →
Search every tradition at once
Ask a question in your own words and see how six traditions answer it.